Goodness & Law
by Steven Partridge
Summary: The kingdom of Doren is under attack by a vile necromancer, and Sister Michal of the High Church and her companions are called to save it. However, when Michal is confronted with corruption in the church and government, will she be able to hold to the tenets of goodness and law that seem so trivial to others? Only time will tell. (rated for gore and some intense scenes)
1. Prologue - The Raven

Prologue

The Raven

"Help me! Somebody help me! Please!" came the desperate screams of a woman through the rainy night in the outer city of Dorenkeep. The woman ran, frequently glancing behind her to see if _it_ was still following her.

As she rounded the corner of a run-down shack, she stopped abruptly, and her heart froze. _No!_ She thought to herself, _There can't be __**more**__ of these abominations!_

Lining the streets of the city slums, dozens of rotting corpses shambled, looking around. One by one, their eyes fell on the woman, and their jaws opened as they unleashed bloodcurdling moans from their putrid mouths.

As they came toward her, the woman gasped, and her heart began beating again, allowing her to move. She stumbled on the muddy dirt road but caught her footing and raced as fast as she could through the streets, continuing to cry out for help, though the cold, autumn air dried her throat so that each scream grated and hurt her.

_Why me?_ The woman asked herself,_ Why do the most horrible things happen to __**me**__? Last year, it was Morris, my love, I lost to the plague, and then... just two days ago... my darling Sophia..._ The woman's eyes streamed with tears that burned her eyes and blurred her vision as she continued to run and began to sob, gasping for breath from the run and now also from her crying.

As she tried to slow herself to turn a corner, she continued to slide, losing her footing and planting her face into the mud. The woman looked up hopelessly at the corpses that now towered over her. _This is it... This is the end..._

Defeated, the woman rested her head down into the chilly mud, ready to die, or undie, or whatever happened when one was bitten by a zombie.

"Mommy?" came a moan from behind the woman.

The woman's eyes grew wide, and her pupils shrank as she recognized the moan with horror. "No!" the woman gasped, her stomach twisting and contorting within her. She raised herself on one hand and looked behind her.

Standing in the rain directly behind the woman was another corpse... a child's corpse... a familiar corpse, carrying the burlap doll the woman had made her for her sixth birthday. Her eyes were now expressionless and hungry as she cocked her head to one side and repeated, "Mommy?"

"Sophia?" the woman wiped the mud from her face, and through the horror of knowing what her daughter was now, there was a glimmer of hope, of happiness to once more see the daughter she thought lost forever. The woman's emotions overtook her, and she stretched out her arms with tears of joy, "Come to mommy, sweetheart!"

The corpse shambled up to the woman and embraced her. The woman sobbed with joy mingled with sorrow over what was happening at this very moment, but the woman's joy was interrupted by a sudden, sharp pain in her shoulder.

She cried out in agony and looked down to see her daughter's corpse had sunken its teeth deep into her shoulder. "Baby!" the woman cried out aghast, "What are you doing?"

Without warning, a knife jutted through the throat of the corpse, causing it to immediately let go of the woman's shoulder. It sputtered, and brown, gloppy blood spattered onto the woman's face from the monster's mouth. The knife twisted and then jerked the creature away from the woman.

Sobbing with pain, the woman began to shiver from cold and shock. She looked up at her savior to see a dark-skinned, masked man clothed all in black leather armor. The hood of his black cloak was pulled over his head, covering his hair.

Without a word, the man yanked his dagger from the monster's neck and sheathed it. Then, he stretched out his hand to help the woman stand. She stumbled and grabbed the man's shoulder for support.

She looked up at the man and asked, "Who are you?"

"The Raven." the man said coolly, "Can you walk?"

The woman nodded hesitantly and pulled away from the man. She looked down the street to see the mass of corpses continuing to approach, "What about the dead?"

"I'll take care of them." the man assured, drawing his twin daggers in a flash. He charged the corpses before him, thrusting his daggers into the backs of two of the zombies. Then, with incredible athleticism, he flipped up into the air and grabbed his daggers' handles, using them to throw the corpses into the next two that charged him. The rotting bodies hit their marks and toppled to the ground in a heap.

The Raven ran forward, drawing his knives from the backs of the zombies as he passed. He leaped into the air and came down on another of the monsters with his blades that divided the skull of the abomination in half.

The woman watched on in awe and terror as the Raven mowed through the corpses with speed and precision that seemed inhuman and deadly accuracy that both comforted and frightened her. _Who is that masked man?_

Within a matter of minutes, all of the zombies had been dispatched. Breathing heavily, the man approached the woman. "You should be safe now."

The woman stroked her hand over the man's black-bearded chin with confusion and wonder in her eyes. "Thank you so much!" the woman said sincerely, "I would have surely died had you not come. I would ask to see your face, but I've heard the rumors from the others."

"Then you understand that my identity is my most prized possession."

The woman nodded, then stood on tiptoe to give the man a kiss on the cheek.

"I must be going now." said the Raven.

"I understand. Thank you again!"

The Raven nodded. "Go to your nearest friend's house and seek shelter. I will continue to search to see if there are any more of these accursed monsters."

The woman smiled and began to walk down the street. She turned back to catch just one last glimpse of her hero, but when she did, he was nowhere to be seen. The woman's eyes narrowed in the dark, searching for some sign of where he had gone but finding none. She smiled and said to herself, "That man... whoever he is, may the Light be with him."


	2. Chapter 1 - Sister Michal

Chapter 1

Sister Michal

The High Church of the Holy Light stood erect in the heart of Dorenkeep, the capitol of the Kingdom of Doren on the continent of Orophel. With its white, marble pillars bordering its huge, oaken double doors and its lustrous stained glass windows that shone with reds, yellows, and greens into the night, it remained a centuries-old beacon of hope in a city that had long forgotten the true meaning behind the traditions and rituals of a religion whose true disciples counted few and whose hypocrites abounded. The church itself was a symbol of an ideal, an ideal that gave the people of Dorenkeep comfort and a sense of safety, regardless of whether they lived in the upper, middle, or lower cities.

This night, though thunder and lightning troubled the rain-filled skies, the melodious songs of the giant pipe organ rang out through the empty streets of the upper city. All of the nobility had gathered in the hallowed halls for the committing ceremony of the newest member of the Sisterhood of the Light.

In the church sanctuary, a regal, bearded man with gray hair stood in his ceremonial robes before the congregation. On the podium before him lay a huge, open book.

Standing before the man, a young woman with long, blonde hair was dressed in chain armor covered by a tabard bearing the insignia of the Church. She also wore a long, white and red skirt over the lower part of her armor, and the hood of her white mantle hung against her back. In her hands, she bore a hammer with holy symbols embossed in gold.

The man at the podium looked down to the girl and addressed her after having given his sermon on virtue and steadfastness, "Do you, Acolyte Michal, swear to uphold the tenets of the faith of the Light?"

The girl's large, brown eyes met the man's gaze, and she nodded, "I will, High Father."

"Let the Light shine to show this word as truth." echoed the congregation, as was their part in the ceremony.

"And do you swear to remain steadfast as a beacon of hope in a world of darkness?"

"I will, High Father."

"Let the Light shine to show this word as truth."

"And do you, before this congregation in the presence of the Most Holy Light swear to uphold the virtues of goodness and law in all you do, no matter the circumstances?"

"I will, High Father."

"Let the Light shine to show this word as truth."

The High Father stepped down from his podium and dipped a jeweled chalice in the basin of holy water on the altar. Then, he raised it above Michal's head as she turned to face the congregation, "I now present to you Sister Michal of the Church of the Most Holy Light." The High Father then anointed Michal with the water, "The path of the cleric is long and difficult, but clear and revealed by the Light. May our newest member of the Sisterhood of the Light serve you well in her lifetime and never lose her way. May the Light be with her!"

"May the Light be with her!" echoed the congregation in response to the High Father's benediction.

Michal smiled an enormous, satisfied smile. _I can't believe I'm finally a member of the Sisterhood! _She said to herself, _I've been waiting for this day since I can remember!_ Michal basked in the gratification of this moment. The road had been long and hard, but now she was a full-fledged cleric of the Church.

Slowly, a harmonic chorus rose from the choir assembled behind the altar,

"_Praise to the Light of Heaven,_

_Holy, just, and true._

_Thy brilliance shines. Then flees the Darkness._

_So we honor You._

_Thy radiance and mercy_

_Will guide us on the way_

_Through this life's path_

_Until we see the dawning of the day."_

As the song began the second time, the congregation joined in. The melody filled the sanctuary and halls of the stone building, creating a warm, moving rumble throughout the church that sent chills of awe down the necks of those singing, encouraging them to sing louder.

As the chorus faded, the huge doors of the church opened and slammed shut in the back of the sanctuary, and a sopping wet man wearing armor bearing fresh scars of battle stumbled down the aisle toward the High Father.

The High Father caught the harrowed man in his arms as he collapsed, "Captain Reysol?"

Michal rushed over and helped the High Father set the man on the floor so that he could rest. She removed her mantle and covered the man with it, holding his wet head on her lap after she knelt down.

"What has happened?" asked the nearby captain of the royal paladins of the church, the Shining Shield.

"Corpses!" gasped the soldier, "_Walking_ corpses in the outer city! They've made it into Low Town even now! I would have died had my sergeant not ordered me to rush word to the Church to call for reinforcements! The Royal Guard..." the man coughed up some blood, then continued, "The Guard cannot deal with a threat like this! We need the paladins and clerics. We're not familiar with these foes!" The man coughed up more blood.

Michal laid a hand on the man's forehead and a second on the man's open wound on his stomach, "_**May the Light have mercy on this faithful soul for his bravery and virtue in the face of death, Light spare him.**_"

As Michal finished her benediction, her eyes, nostrils, ears, and mouth shone with white light, as did the soldier's. Then, his wound also began to glow vibrantly. As the wound closed miraculously, the light faded.

The entire congregation watched in awe at the sight. Though rumors had been told of the Brotherhood and Sisterhood of the Light and of the clerics' healing powers, few had actually witnessed a healing firsthand, since they were usually done on the battlefield or else in private solitude.

The High Father looked down and smiled with pride at Michal. Then, he looked up and addressed the captain of the Shining Shield, "Captain Jared Lightbringer."

The captain knelt before the High Father, "Yes, Your Excellency?"

"You shall answer this cry for help, and you shall be accompanied by our newest member of the Sisterhood of the Light."

"Yes, Your Grace." the man bowed, then rose.

Michal looked up at the High Father with a start, "But Your Grace, I'm not sure-"

"You have already demonstrated your willingness to aid the weary and dying and your commitment to serving others in the name of the Light." the High Father gestured to the recovered soldier as Captain Lightbringer helped him to his feet, "I believe you are ready to perform your vows."

Michal nodded, "Yes, Your Excellency. I will go."

The High Father extended his jeweled scepter toward Michal and the captain, "Then go forth, noble heroes, and spread the Light to dispatch the Darkness!"

Once Michal and Jared had gathered their necessary equipment, the two made their way through the streets of High Town to the Inner Gate. Then, they made their way through Mid Town until they reached the Central Gate.

Through the clash of the thunder and the hiss of the rain as the storm picked up, bloodcurdling screams of the terrified, desperate, and dying rang out through the night. Michal's stomach writhed and contorted within her body, sending shivers and sharp pain sickeningly up her back. Though her faith remained stalwart, her nerves remained tense. Never before had Michal actually seen combat with the undead. In fact, growing up in the church orphanage, Michal and the others had dreamed of the battles sung in the epic tales of the bards, but that was when the battles were foreign. Never had a necromancer arisen so close to the capitol, nor had the capitol been under siege for centuries.

Now, standing here in the rain, the moment seemed surreal as the lines of fantasy and fiction blurred with reality. Now, the screams actually resounded in her ears; now, the coppery reek of blood mingled unpleasantly with the stench of wet, rotting flesh; now was the time of war.

"Open the gates!" ordered Jared Lightbringer over the clamor around.

Michal's eyes grew wide as the huge, wooden gates opened into the lower city, revealing men fending off walking corpses to protect their bloodied wives and children. Mothers thrust their children ahead of them and turned to face their certain, gory doom. Elder siblings dragged younger ones along, despite the younger ones' pleas to go back to rescue mommy or daddy.

As Michal observed the horror, righteous fury welled up within her, overpowering her fear and shock. Now, she desired only to protect the innocent, to heal the dying, and to bring holy fire down upon these abominations.

She sneered and extended her mace, embossed with holy symbols. "_**Let the Light shine into the Darkness!**_" As Michal unleashed her battle cry, her voice echoed, and her eyes and weapon shone with brilliant light as all undead within several feet of her erupted into gold and silver fire, crumbling into ash.

"Michal!" ordered Jared, "Tend to the wounded!" With that, he charged forward, clenching his enormous hammer in both hands.

As Jared pressed into a mob of zombies, he swung his hammer and unleashed a mighty bellow, "For the Light!" Rotting corpses flew into the air in multiples of four and five as Jared plowed through the mob toward a cornered family.

Meanwhile, Michal swung her own hammer, smashing through the zombies one by one, attempting to reach a man with a zombie hanging onto his arm by its jaws. Though she shoved and beat her way further and further into the mob, more undead continued to flood into the throng, seemingly only increasing the distance between Michal and her target. Zombie claws and jaws chinked against Michal's chain mail armor. The force of the assaults shoved her forward and back sporadically, making her blows less accurate and powerful; however, she pressed on.

"Help me! Please!" came the man's desperate pleas as he dropped to his knees from the pain of the assault.

"Hold on!" Michal shouted over the thunder and rain. She extended her holy symbol-engraved hammer, "_**As the Light shines in the Darkness, so hope will outshine fear!**_"

A gap in the horde before Michal appeared as dozens of zombies exploded into holy fire. The few that remained between the Sister and the victim were now few enough that she was able to smash them away with her hammer.

"Hurry! Take my hand!" screamed Michal, extending her free hand to help the man up.

The man looked up at his savior, his hollow, glassed-over eyes met Michal's.

"No!" she gasped, realizing that her efforts were too little too late.

The fresh zombie lunged toward the priestess. His face came within centimeters of hers, and his rancid breath nearly overwhelmed her as the monster roared in her face.

Before Michal could respond, a black-cloaked figure descended from the top of a nearby building and landed on top of the zombie man. The figure turned around, revealing that his face was masked underneath his drawn hood.

With a single, fluid spin, the man's cloak, which was split up the middle to resemble a pair of wings, lashed out against an oncoming throng of undead. The added weight of the water from the torrential rain aided his assault, knocking the mob backward.

"Who are you?" asked Michal.

"The Raven!" the figure responded, whipping out twin curved daggers, "You should get out of here, little girl!" He inserted his daggers sharply into two zombies that charged him from either side, then jerked them out, spilling putrescent, black bile on the cobblestone pavement. Then, he turned to address Michal again, "The battlefield is no place for twelve-year-olds!"

"I'm _seventeen_!" Michal corrected, smashing an oncoming zombie in the face, "And for your information, I'm fully capable of handling myself!" She extended her symbol, and her eyes beamed with brilliant light as her voice echoed, "_**The Light will cleanse the wicked!**_"

In response to Michal's condemnation, a host of approaching zombies burst into brilliant, magical fire and collapsed into piles of wet ash.

"Michal!" came Jared's cry from in the midst of a vast number of zombies as he stood as the sole barricade between them and two young children. His side bled from an open gash in his golden, plate armor.

"_**Healing Light of Heaven, grant the injured their reward!**_" echoed Michal's voice.

In a flash, Jared's wounds closed. With newfound vigor, he swung his hammer back and forth, sending piles of zombies flying into the air.

"Look out!" the Raven shouted at Michal, throwing a dirk toward her.

Michal flinched and turned to see that the throwing knife had planted itself into the forehead of a zombie that she had not seen. The monster collapsed to the ground, dead once more.

"How did-" Before Michal could finish her thought, she noticed a figure watching the events unfold from an alleyway, ignored by the corpses.

The figure removed the cowl of her maroon robe to reveal that she appeared extraordinarily old, with pale, gray skin and long, stringy, white hair. She made direct, purposeful eye contact with Michal.

Michal's heart stopped beating for a split second, and the distractions around her – the storm, the conflict, the screams of the fearful – all faded away. The only sounds she could hear were two separate heartbeats, synchronized perfectly.

Michal's eyes narrowed, and she charged toward the woman, not hearing Jared and the Raven's calls for aid. Somehow, some inexplicable way, Michal knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that this specific woman was responsible for this tragedy.

"You!" shouted Michal, pointing at the woman, "In the name of the High Church, I command you to surrender yourself immediately!"

Michal heard the woman chuckle.

Enraged, she charged the mysterious woman, brandishing her hammer with both hands.

As she began to let out a battle cry, Michal's eyes once more shone with light so that her pupils faded altogether into the glare. She would end this here and now. Nothing would stop her.

As she reached the woman's location, intending to plow through her, Michal stumbled on the pavement. Expecting the resistance of the woman's body, Michal charged into a puff of wispy, black smoke.

Michal caught herself and turned around to see Jared, the Raven, the Guard, and all of the remaining citizens looking around, perplexed. None of the zombies that had remained standing were there any longer.

"What happened?" she asked, walking up to Jared and the Raven.

"You ran off, and then suddenly, all of the corpses disappeared in a burst of smoke." answered the Raven.

Jared sniffed the air, "Sulfur... The smoke smells... of sulfur..."

"What does that mean?" asked Michal.

"I'm not certain... yet." said Jared, "We should return and report our encounter to the High Father," He turned to the Raven, "and you're coming with us!"

"Actually," corrected the Raven, "you'll find that I'm not."

"You are a reckless vigilante and transgressor of the law!" Jared said harshly, "You will be brought before the High Father for judgment in accordance with royal law!"

The Raven glanced back and forth between the sternly steadfast expressions of the captain of the Shining Shield and the Sister of the Light, then smiled, "Fine. I'll go, but I'm only going because I feel there's more to the recent events than I am capable of handling alone... and I'm not taking off the mask."


	3. Chapter 2 - Faith & Farce

Chapter 2

Faith & Farce

"So what you are saying," clarified the High Father, "is that you believe this woman that you tackled was the necromancer, but before you could question her, she and all of the undead vanished?"

"Yes, Your Grace." Michal nodded.

The High Father stroked his beard thoughtfully for several seconds, then spoke, "This incursion is clearly too much for only a few to deal with..."

"I have been investigating the matter of the undead for quite some time now." interjected the Raven, stepping forward, "I have many weapons to combat them, and I believe I may be close to identifying their origin in the outer city."

"How dare you address the High Father in such a manner!" exclaimed Jared, grabbing the Raven's shoulder and forcing him down to one knee.

The Raven tumbled out of the way and stood, facing Jared, "I addressed him with the same courtesy and respect I give to all men, paladin!"

"He is more than a mere man! He is the mouth of the Light!" Jared shouted back.

"I do not share your faith, captain. So don't try to force it on me."

Michal scowled. "Enough!" her voice rang out through the empty sanctuary. "Bickering amongst ourselves won't get us anywhere! I-" Michal stopped herself, realizing she had snapped at them in the presence of the High Father.

"Sister Michal is right." the High Father nodded toward her, "Bickering will only aid the enemy in accomplishing her vile purposes. We must stand together, or we shall all fall apart."

"Yes, Your Grace." Jared knelt before the High Father.

"We need a plan." said the Raven.

"The plan is this:" began the High Father, "tonight, we rest and take solace in the lives that were spared. For tomorrow, the hunt for the vile witch responsible for these atrocities shall commence!"

"So, you think you have me cornered, do you?" laughed an old woman as she watched the conversation at the High Church unfold through her scrying orb, "You fools! Are you truly so blind as not to see that you are merely my puppets?" Her black-painted lips drew into an insidious smile, and her dark eyes narrowed. "Soon, my pets... Soon, all that you hold dear will be utterly destroyed, and the very fabric of your society will rend and shear."

The witch laughed heartily, and her cackles resounded through the hollow stone tower in which she resided. The storm outside persisted, yet the woman's insane laughter drowned out the sounds of the storm and echoed into the dark of the deep woods in which her tower was erected.

As Michal and the Raven walked the streets of the outer city the day after the attack of the undead, a heaviness hung gloomily over the citizens who cleaned up their ransacked homes. Carts laden with mounds of the dead, and motionless undead, were pushed through the streets, adding bodies to their loads like farmers harvesting their autumn crops. Red and orange leaves blew through the gray sky ominously, and the hushed sobs of the mourning could be heard over the faint whistle of the wind.

Michal looked around her at the devastated shacks, unable to discern whether they always looked this way or if the destruction from the previous night had caused this poor community to be ravaged still further. "These people look so... defeated..." Michal mused sympathetically.

"Wouldn't you be?" said the Raven, "What little these people had in life has been taken from them... even the comfort of knowing they had nothing worth stealing has been stripped from them."

Feeling overwhelmed with compassion for the people around her, Michal suddenly ran over to the edge of the street and grabbed a wooden crate. She dragged it into the middle of the road and then stood on top of it to address the people, "Citizens of Dorenkeep! Listen to me! My name is Sister Michal of the High Church. I would remind you of the words found in the Holy Book, in the Canticle of the Light, chapter 22: verses 18 through 22, the Book declares, 'Through blackest night and darkest hour, the Light shines still in the hidden corners, where few can see. So hold fast to these: faith, hope, goodness, and law. Those who seek these shall find them. They who remain true and honest and pure will not falter, though the Darkness closes in, still will their faith shine in their hearts like-'"

"Get down from there!" ordered the Raven, yanking Michal from her stand.

"What are you doing?" demanded Michal, "Let go of me!"

"These people don't need a sermon. They need help... _real_ help."

"No, they need _hope_!"

"Standing up in the street telling them to hope in hopeless times is a waste! These people are good people; I know many of them by name. Where was the Light when they were attacked? They didn't deserve to be assaulted. We need to get to the bottom of this now. Their hope will come when they see their homes and families can be restored once the witch has been brought to justice!"

"The Light-"

"The Light is a myth, a legend for the weak of mind and body who cannot face the realities of life without buckling. Hope and virtue come from within the hearts of those who have found purpose, not those who need to explain things in terms of an absentee parental figure who loves his children as much as a parent who leaves their child on the streets to fend for themselves!"

Michal's eyes began to well with tears, but the Raven continued on his rant, "Look around you and open your eyes, Sister! Good people are dying! These people around have lived to see the horrors of their own friends and family members being turned into the undead who try to destroy them! Meanwhile, the king and his council of elders do nothing to protect these people. They send no patrols out here to protect or stand watch, yet these people pay taxes to them for being near enough the city that the council feels they have the right to demand money of the destitute! Outside your pretty stone walls and stained glass windows, the world is a cruel and ugly place. Consider this a wake-up call while you're still young enough to get out of the system, girl; goodness and law can _never_ coexist, because they are opposites!"

"You're wrong." Michal stammered defiantly, clenching her fists.

"No, Sister," corrected the Raven, "_you're_ wrong. The sooner you see that your precious Church is little more than a corrupt facade for lies and false hope, the sooner you can face reality and begin doing some _real_ good."

The remainder of the trek through the outer city was silent between the rogue and the cleric. Awkward tension hung between them, keeping them bound together yet distancing them further than the widest chasm.

Finally, the two reached the Broken Mirror, the seedy tavern in the outer city where Jared had arranged for them to meet. The tavern reeked of sweat and stale, cheap ale. The patrons were mostly gruff men, armed and armored, and the few women in the bar besides Michal could be described as loose and provocative at best. The walls shook with the noises of rowdy patrons singing crude drinking songs and the barmaids giggling at the things whispered in their ears from drunken men.

Michal glanced from side to side uncomfortably. _This is no place for a Sister..._ Her nose wrinkled with disgust at the mingled smells of alcohol and body odor that wafted offensively from the hairy men who brushed against her as she attempted to squeeze past them to keep up with the Raven, who had already made his way over to the bar.

"What are we doing in a place like this?" asked Michal as she stumbled up to the bar awkwardly. She pulled the hood of her mantle over her head in an effort to hide her face from onlookers.

"Well, well!" laughed the pudgy, mustachioed barkeep as he wiped a stein with a filthy rag, "Not too often we get clerics in here! What's your name, pretty little girl?" He leaned in toward Michal.

She coughed and sputtered from the overwhelming scent of ale on the man's breath, "Sister Michal."

"Sister, eh?" the man mocked a pouty frown, "So I take it you've taken a vow of celibacy then?"

"Not yet," answered Michal, "but I'm beginning to consider it more and more as I see the prospects the male gender has to offer here..."

The noises of the tavern hushed abruptly as the front door opened. A tall, well-built man in his late fifties strode in regally with a two-handed hammer slung over his shoulder and a thick, leather-bound book on a chain at his side. The man brushed his hand over his short, brown hair as he examined the room.

"Captain Lightbringer!" Michal exclaimed with relieved joy as she ran through the path that had cleared to the doorway.

"What's wrong, Michal?" asked Jared.

She sighed, "Nothing. I'm just glad you're here!"

Jared and Michal walked together up to the bar, and Jared ordered two bowls of beef stew, one for himself and one for Michal. The barkeep nodded and stumbled into the kitchen behind a broad, swinging door with a porthole carved roughly into it to allow the scents of food to escape to the common room.

"Why did you want to meet _here_ of all places?" Michal asked, turning to face Jared.

"Because the attacks began in the outer city, and the lower classes are notorious gossips, for the right coin."

The Raven sneered at the way Jared mentioned the "lower classes" but remained silent.

"We need to learn what we can quickly so that we may restore order and smite the necromancer in the name of the Light!"

The Raven scoffed, "'The Light' again? Really? You religious-types are all the same."

"Why shouldn't we be?" Jared glared, "We hold true to the tenets of the Holy Book by the will of the Light."

"Your Church is a house of pompous lies and hypocrisy in the name of a fictional being you feel you need to use to explain the world and the events in it!"

"Why are you so antagonistic to the Church?" Michal piped up, "Ever since you _invited yourself_ along on this mission, you've done nothing but attack our faith."

"I'm just disgusted by people who propagate lies!"

Michal lost her temper, "We propagate _truth_ and hope and virtue!"

"Then explain to me how it is that your buildings are decorated with jewels and tapestries, while those who the Church dictates others should help go hungry and cold without basic provisions?"

"The Church takes in the widowed and orphaned and destitute." Jared interjected.

"So long as they listen to a spiel about the Light being sovereign and all that other sodding nonsense!"

"That's not true!" insisted Michal, "The Church offers provision for all! The problem is people like _you_ who spread rumors like that because you're jaded! The fact is, the Church helps people; they transform the lives of the purposeless, giving them reason to live and do something meaningful with themselves!"

"I have yet to see one person who's had a ruined life that your beloved Church took in and made into someone worthwhile!"

"That's because you're so obsessed with your own animosity that you refuse to ask any questions or see what's _right in front of you_!" With that, Michal stormed out of the tavern, slamming the door behind her.

The Raven scoffed, "That girl needs to learn how to handle someone challenging her beliefs."

"No," corrected Jared solemnly, staring sternly at the Raven, "_'that girl'_ needs to be left alone by _you_." Jared turned his body on his stool to face the rogue, "Michal came to the Church orphanage at the age of nine. No one knows where she originally came from or who her parents really were. All we know is that she used to be a pickpocket on the streets, scrimping by with what meager necessities were provided her by the rings of organized children's crime that run rampant through the city. She came to the Church after she was raped and beaten half to death by the man who 'owned' her and her friends."

"I had no idea..."

"There's more." Jared continued, "Once she was finally well enough to tell us where the rest of the children and this man were, we went into the sewers to free them... but when we got there... all of the children had been raped and brutally murdered... and the man had gotten away... To this day, we still have no idea what happened to that man, but I made a solemn promise to Michal that I would do everything in my power to protect her so that nothing like that ever happens again. The fact is, Michal is a Sister of the Light, but she will never be able to advance any further in the Church, because she has been violated, and should she take a vow of celibacy, it will only be for her own spiritual benefit but will not further her standing. That single instance scarred her, yet she refused to allow it to defeat her. Her conviction is not out of naivety, but out of true testing and confidence in her own experience in the hope she has found."

"And all these years, you've watched out for her and protected her like she was your own daughter..."

Jared nodded, "Because I've taken my own vow of celibacy, I will never have a child of my own... but Michal is as much a daughter to me as I imagine any father has ever had, and I could not be more proud of her."

"I had no idea..."

"Because you didn't ask," said Jared, "and if you remember nothing else from this conversation, remember this: I _do_ see Michal as my daughter, and as such, if you _ever_ do anything to hurt her again, I will prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law... Believe me when I say that the law has many, many statutes which you have arguably broken and could be punished with tortures only imagined in the mind of a father protecting his child. Do you understand me?"

The Raven nodded, unnerved.


	4. Chapter 3 - Shrub Slayer

Chapter 3

Shrub Slayer

Michal ran as fast a she could beyond the fringes of the outer city and into the forest that bordered Dorenkeep. She smashed through brush and dodged trees, stumbling occasionally but never slowing. _I just want to get as far away from here as possible! I just need to be alone! _Her chest pounded, and each breath seemed to chill deeper and more sharply in her lungs. Hot tears burned her eyes and warmed her face as they streaked down and backward in the wind.

Finally, Michal's legs gave out from exhaustion, and she fell under a tree, her face planting in a pile of colorful, fallen leaves that broke her fall. Enraged and drained, she began to sob into the wet, musty leaves, letting all of her burning anger and frustration pour out in her tears.

After a few minutes, Michal's crying was interrupted by a sharp poking on her right shoulder. At first, Michal ignored it, but the poking persisted, increasing in intensity and rapidness.

"Hello?" came a high-pitched voice with an odd accent.

Michal composed herself and sat up. She wiped the tears from her eyes, certain her eyes were playing tricks on her.

Squatting on the ground next to her was a creature that appeared to be a tiny human woman with long, brown hair and tan skin. She was dressed in a brilliant, blue dress. Blue feathers hung from her earrings and adorned her left arm's leather glove that ran up to her shoulder. On the woman's back was an oddly shaped instrument case, and at her side hung a sheathed sword with a blue ribbon on the hilt.

"What's a little girl doing here in the middle of the forest unsupervised?" asked Michal.

"Little girl?" scoffed the creature, "I'm no human child! I'm a halfling!" She adjusted herself indignantly and pointed at her cleavage, "How many children do you know with _these_?"

"Oh! My..." Michal stammered, taken aback. "I- um... Sorry, what was your name again?"

"I go by many names." the halfling replied, "Diamond in the Rough, the Blue Bard, and the Minstrel o' Farshire," she bowed flamboyantly, "but you may call me Sapphire."

"Right..." said Michal warily, "I'm Sister Michal of the High Church."

Sapphire's pink-painted lips shrank into a small "o" that sank to the base of her chin. "So..." said Sapphire awkwardly, "I just flashed a holy woman my cleavage...?"

"Yeah..."

"Let's never speak o' this again..."

Both women stared blankly at each other for a moment, trying to gauge what the other was thinking. Then, both spontaneously burst into uncontrolled laughter.

"You have no idea how much I needed that just then!" said Michal, composing herself, "It's been one of those days, you know?"

"I hear you!" Sapphire laughed, "I've been lost in this forest since yesterday."

"Really?"

Sapphire nodded, "Yeah. See, my campsite was attacked last night by a bunch o' walkin' corpses! They were huge!"

"So the undead were all the way out here..." Michal mused to herself.

"What's that?"

"Oh, sorry. Last night, Dorenkeep was sieged by an army of zombies."

"So _that's _where they were headed! You know, when they came back, there were three or four times more o' them."

"Wait!" interrupted Michal, "When they _came back_? I thought they vanished!"

"I'd imagine if you saw 'em last night, you could've seen 'em vanish, since they just appeared in a puff o' smoke, led by some old woman with a gravelly voice."

_So she saw the old woman too..._

"They marched deeper into the forest, but I've no idea where they were goin'."

"Where did they first appear?"

"I'd say... maybe three or four miles west. Why?"

"It's my responsibility, granted by the High Father, to root out the witch responsible and bring her to justice."

"I see... Then, I guess I'm goin' with you!"

"Wait, what?"

"See, I'm tryin' to chronicle an epic, but the problem is, I've got no material. I've traveled with adventuring parties, mercenary companies, and well near every other sort o' group that excitin' things seem to follow, but the most epic-worthy thing I've encountered in the last six months was the horde of undead last night. So, I'll come along and record what happens for future generations!"

"I'm not sure that's such a good idea... See, what we're doing is going to be dangerous."

"All the better! In fact, if it _weren't_ dangerous, you'd be hearin' a fair bit o' complainin' from me, seein' as how safety don't really make for an excitin' story. Besides, I can be useful! You just wait and see!"

Michal sighed, "Okay. You can come."

"You won't be sorry!" Sapphire smiled.

"What we need to do now is get back to Captain Lightbringer."

When Michal and Sapphire returned to the Broken Mirror, they informed Jared and the Raven of what happened the previous night.

"So," Jared clarified, "the bard saw the witch trekking through the forest with her horde of minions?"

"The _bard _is named Sapphire, in case you've forgotten, _paladin_!" Sapphire quipped discontentedly.

"Either way," said Jared, turning the conversation back to the matter at hand, "what this means is that we need to go into Desmer Forest to find the witch's lair."

"You know, you're not gonna get very far without a guide." piped up a gruff voice from behind the group.

They turned to see a dwarf with his black hair shaved into a Mohawk and a handlebar mustache. Most of his hairy body was exposed, except for what little was covered by his brown, leather loincloth and hulking belt with comparatively large buckle. His feet were clothed with brown leather boots, and he had a blue tattoo of a serpent spiraling from his right arm up the back of his neck and head to above his right eye, accentuating his icy blue eyes.

Casually, the dwarf stood from leaning on his proportional great axe and slung it over his shoulder. "I couldn't help but overhear about your little dilemma, and I thought you might like to know that I'd be happy to offer my services... for a fee." A hint of greed, or maybe something else that was equally clever, twinkled in his eye.

"Let's not even bother with him." the Raven scoffed, "He's nothing but a money-grubbing dwarf... who we can't afford to pay."

"You mean, who _you_ can't afford to pay." Jared corrected, "The Church has allotted me with a sum of money which is to be put toward the apprehension of the witch." He pulled out a heavy sack that jingled with the coins inside. "Fifty gold pieces to guide us safely to and from the witch's lair."

"You've got yourself a deal!" the dwarf smiled, shaking Jared's hand, "Name's Brock the Wanderer."

"I am Jared Lightbringer," Jared answered in kind, "and this is Sister Michal, Sapphire, and Raven."

"Did you say you were a Wanderer?" asked Sapphire curiously.

"Aye." the bulky dwarf nodded casually.

"What about it?" asked Michal.

"The Wanderers are nomadic dwarves that've left their societies to travel the world and live off the land." Sapphire answered, "They're renowned for bein' the best wilderness survival guides on Aldaronthe."

"I'll have you know we've earned that reputation, lass." Brock smiled confidently.

"Let's put your claim to the test then, dwarf." said Jared.

"The _dwarf_ has a name too, _human_." said Sapphire wryly with a degree of annoyance.

Ignoring the bard, Jared continued, "We shall make haste toward the dwelling of the witch!"

Brock led the party through the forest off the beaten path. Though Michal and Jared had difficulty keeping pace with the more nimble of their associates, they persevered. Jared had the tougher time, with his hammer and plate armor.

As he stepped through the next bush, his tabard became ensnared. Try as he might, though, he was unable to free it. In frustration, he began beating the bush furiously with his weapon, "Die, foul abomination! You shall hinder the progress of the Light no more! May holy fire envelop your maleficent branches until you and all other plants you hold dear in this forest are no more than ash on the ground!"

Brock cocked an eyebrow, "Does he normally burst out with rage against plants? I mean, I'm a berserker, but if that's what he's going for, he's doing it all wrong, and why would he want to fight a shrubbery?"

"Go get 'em, tiger!" Sapphire cheered mockingly.

Jared continued to pulverize the bush, cursing it by every holy tenet of the Light, but alas, his efforts to free his tabard were in vain.

"Jared." Michal hushed, grabbing the man's wrist before he landed another blow on the now mangled and smashed bush. She knelt down, and with a few simple twists, the tabard was freed.

"I apologize for my outburst." said Jared,straightening his tabard and mantle.

"No, please," said Brock, "by all means, burst out. It's entertaining for the rest of us!"

Sapphire laughed, pointing at the flattened bush, "I think I just got my inspiration for how to refer to you in the epic: Jared the Shrub Slayer!"

"What?" exclaimed Jared indignantly, "I'm Jared the _Lightbringer_, prophesied as the chosen one to restore law and order to a lawless kingdom!"

"The mighty bringer of law and justice..." Sapphire quoted jokingly, "May all evil plants beware the mighty and terrible Shrub Slayer!"

"What? No! That's not my name! It's Jared _Lightbringer_!"

Sapphire whipped out her violin and began fiddling a tune on it as she sang,

"_Beware! Beware! The power of the Slayer_

_Of Shrubs and brush_

_And all the evil plants of doom!"_

Jared began chasing the sprightly halfling as she danced nimbly around, over logs and through bushes. However, his armor still weighed him down. So, Sapphire danced circles around the frustrated paladin.

As Sapphire jumped over the bush that Jared had flattened, he followed, tromping right over it. Jared's face became stern, and his vocal complaints ceased as he stopped abruptly, his tabard once more caught in the same bush.

Sapphire turned to see why her pursuer had stopped and fell to the ground laughing upon seeing the reason, "Really? _Really_? This is comedy gold right here! Poetic justice at its finest!" She began playing a more ominous tune as she sang a new verse to her melody,

"_Beware! Beware! The bitter revenge_

_Of the bush, the bush,_

_The evil bush..."_

She paused, "I need to come up with a name for this bush... Such a hardy, valiant, vengeful bush deserves a foreboding name..." She brought her bow to her lip contemplatively, then burst out with inspiration, "I've got it!"

"_Beware! Beware! The bitter revenge_

_Of the bush, the bush,_

_The evil bush named Glen!"_

At this, everyone except Jared roared with laughter. He continued to struggle with freeing himself once more.

Finally beyond the point of wanting to save his tabard, Jared yanked on it, and it tore free, "Sod it all!"

"Such language!" Sapphire exclaimed mockingly, "I had no idea the mighty Jared the Shrub Slayer had such a tongue for a paladin! I thought part of your vows included no cursing or something like that?"

Jared scowled, "Let's just keep moving."


	5. Chapter 4 - Anonymity & Conviction

Chapter 4

Anonymity & Conviction

As afternoon faded into dusk, Brock led the group to a small clearing in the woods. "Here we are!" he huffed gruffly, "Best site for camp within miles. I've used this spot myself many times, though you might want to avoid setting up your tents over that bare spot over there." Brock pointed at a spot off to the center of the clearing where the grass had been worn away and the blanket of colored leaves was thinner.

Michal wretched at the remark, and Sapphire snickered, snorting subtly partway through her laughter. Jared simply raised an eyebrow in stoic unamusement.

"We should get to work setting up camp before nightfall." Jared commented, "Michal?"

"Sir?"

"You have knowledge of herbs and berries. Please go into the woods and find some suitable sustenance."

Michal nodded, "On it." With that, she immediately walked off into the forest.

"Hold on there, lass!" Brock grabbed the girl's forearm. "You shouldn't just wander into the forest unaccompanied!"

"Then you go with her." Jared ordered, "As for Sapphire and Raven, see if you can find some firewood and build a suitable campfire."

"Hold on!" interjected the Raven, "Who put you in charge of our group?"

"The _church_." Jared glared, "I think the more appropriate question would be, who invited _you_ along on this journey, considering that you simply decided you were going to follow us as if you had something to prove?"

"It's _my _responsibility to protect the outer city." said the Raven, "So long as the outer city is in danger of being invaded again, it's my responsibility to get to the bottom of the threat and neutralize it."

"On whose authority?" demanded Jared, "Hm? You're nothing more than a vigilante, and were it not for the explicit orders of the High Father to accept your help, I would not hesitate to throw you in prison myself!"

Michal walked up and put a firm but gentle hand on Jared's shoulder, reminding him to maintain what little dignity he had left after the incident with the bush.

Jared sighed, exhaling roughly through his nostrils. Then, inhaling deeply, he composed himself, "You have your assignments. Get to them."

The group agreed and separated, with Jared remaining at the camp to set up the tents.

"So why do you hate the paladin so much?" asked Sapphire as she and the Raven walked through the forest.

"I could ask you the same thing."

"What? Me? No, I don't hate him. I just think he's fun to tease." Sapphire glanced up knowingly, "You, on the other hand, _clearly_ hate him."

"Why do you even care, halfling?"

Sapphire scoffed, "Why does _everybody _keep doin' that? My name is _Sapphire_! Wait a minute! You're just tryin' to deter my question."

"And I ask again; why do you even care?"

"Call it research." Sapphire smiled, resting her hands behind her head, "After all, if I'm writin' an epic, I really should know my characters. Besides, you intrigue me."

"I'm not that interesting."

"I get the feelin' there's more to you than meets the eye."

"I promise, there's not."

"Then why do you wear a mask to hide your face?"

"You just answered your own question."

"Quit dancin' around my questions!" Sapphire jumped into the Raven's way and stopped, crossing her arms resolutely.

The Raven stopped and looked down at the halfling for a moment. _She's not giving up._ "Anonymity is my most prized possession."

Sapphire squinted, "More questions..."

"Now would you please leave me alone?"

"Just answer me one thing: why is anonymity so important to you if you do good? Why don't you just become a paladin or a member of the Royal Guard in your kingdom? Why do you choose to operate outside the law?"

"That was more than one thing to answer."

Sapphire's blue eyes stared stubbornly into the Raven's.

After pondering for a moment, he shook his head back and forth while looking into the air, frustrated. He sighed, "Let's just say that if people knew who I really was, I wouldn't be able to do anyone any good."

"Fair enough."

"So," Michal asked Brock as she examined a bush for berries she could add into her leather satchel full of the food she had collected so far, "why were you so ready to volunteer as our guide?"

"Volunteered _nothing_, lass!" Brock sputtered, "I expect to be properly compensated for my efforts!"

Michal paused and turned, staring at her companion in disbelief, "I'm not stupid. You're not in it for the money."

"And how would you know that? Do your cleric powers let you see into my soul or something?"

"Try deductive reasoning." Michal cocked an eyebrow, "You barely wear clothes; so, you don't need the money for armor or clothing. Your weapon is crude and worn, but ornate weapons don't seem much your style. You have gold earrings through your upper ears, but with five already, I doubt you need fifty gold's worth of additional jewelry. You live off the land in the wilderness, hence your ability to guide us; so, you don't need to pay for food or lodging, and you don't strike me as the stereotype of the dwarf drunkard. So, with all of these facts in mind, the question begs itself, why _are_ you helping us?"

Brock let out a heavy sigh and took a seat on a nearby tree root, "You're good, lass. You're real good."

Intrigued, Michal took a seat on another overgrown root across from Brock's.

"Before I begin," said Brock, "How much do you know about mountain dwarf society?"

"Almost nothing beyond that they're supposedly greedy and set in their ways."

"That's about all there is _to know_ in all truthfulness." Brock leaned forward on the hilt of his axe, "In the halls of Dwarenhold, your last name is your family's occupation. The parents you're born to determine your profession, your social status, your quality of life... everything."

"You mean like the caste systems of the human empire of Xanthe?" asked Michal.

"In a way, but in Xanthenese society, anyone can become part of the warrior caste and become an upstanding member of the community. Also, the Xanthenese hold their traditions for a purpose, and everyone is treated with respect and honor. Even the lowest of castes is given dignity. In dwarven society, though, tradition is held for tradition's sake. The nobles are corrupt, seeing themselves as above the law, while those of lower castes live in squalor with no respect from the higher classes. Those who leave and join with the hill dwarves or other races are called 'outcasts', and are treated with the same regard as dark elves, being considered even lower than the dark dwarves."

"What does that have to do with your motives for helping us?" asked Michal.

"See, I left the mountain dwarves with my parents when I was still just a lad. We lived amongst the barbarians of the north. We were accepted and loved, and it was in that society that I was trained in the ways of the berserker, an unarmored warrior who channels fury like a weapon and wanders the land, not living off of it as much as _sharing life with it_. A barbarian respects the land and nature. The trees became my guardians, and I became theirs. The animals became my friends, and I have never known truer companions. The seasons became my calendar, and I understood them as only a wilder could."

Michal listened thoughtfully. It was strange to see such an imposing, tough-looking man showing such tenderness. There was something about his casual lack of formality that was pleasantly unfamiliar and endearing.

"So, as you can imagine," Brock continued, "when corpses began to rise and tromp through my forest, corrupting everything around them, I tried to kill them all... but there were just too many, and I was overpowered, forced to take refuge in the city."

Michal, hearing a hint of regret in his voice, asked, "You don't like the city at all?"

"It's so crowded and unpredictable. The people are rude and busy and talk too much. So, no, I don't like the city, and I don't expect I ever will."

"So then, you just happened to be in the right place at the right time to overhear our conversation about stopping the witch?"

"In a way." replied Brock, "See, I was in the lower city in Dorenkeep the night of the assault. I was convinced that these monsters were following me and felt responsible. So I tried to help fight them off. Unfortunately, I was outnumbered again and realized the city was going to fall... that is, until you and Jared showed up. The way you two destroyed those zombies was unlike anything I've ever seen. When I saw the way you made them burn by the hordes, I realized that you possessed some power that I needed in order to reclaim my forest. So, I followed you to your church and listened in to your plans. The next morning, I just went to the Broken Mirror and waited for you all to show up."

"I see." said Michal. She smiled, "I'm glad you're willing to help us."

"I thought if I just went along without asking some sort of price, you'd get suspicious of me, and it might slow down the trip."

"For what it's worth," said Michal as she looked over at her new companion optimistically, "I'm glad you're our guide."


	6. Chapter 5 - Lilith

Chapter 5

Lilith

The orange fire's crackles and snaps reverberated through the night. As the five heroes sat around their campfire, the shadowy trees loomed around the clearing like silent defenders, ever watchful and ever dark. The murky sky above was further clouded by the smoke and ashy embers that billowed from the center of the camp, painting the rain-scented forest with the rugged scent of civilization.

"I can't believe you set up my tent on the spot the dwarf warned us about!" the Raven griped, poking at the fire and glaring at Jared.

"In all fairness," responded Jared, "_I_ can't believe that you came back with so little firewood that we had to send our guide out to get more. So, I suppose you might call it 'prescient, poetic justice'."

"I don't know about you," Sapphire leaned over and whispered to Michal, "but when those two go at it, it gets me really hot!"

"Oh!" Michal scoffed disgustedly.

Eager to change the subject, she turned her attention to the Raven, "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure," said the Raven, "but before you do, I should apologize. When we were walking to the tavern, I was out of order to attack your faith so vehemently, especially without knowing your past. You have a right to hold your faith just as much as my right to reject it."

Michal stared in disbelief for a moment, then gazed down and smiled sentimentally, "I forgive you. Thank you." Then, she looked up at him, "I noticed that you use daggers to fight the zombies. Normally, those weapons would be ineffective against undead. Why do yours work?"

"My daggers and crossbow have been blessed by the church."

"But you don't believe in the Light."

"I don't believe the Light should be _worshiped,_" the Raven corrected, "but it would be foolish and illogical for me to ignore the fact that the magics you wield are the most effective means of fighting such creatures. I believe that you believe in your powers, and that fuels the magic in yourself. As for your ideals, I don't find them totally worthless, just impractical. I simply got caught up in the stress of the moment." He bit his lower lip and paused for a moment, gazing up into the stars. "When I was a boy, I was raised going to sermons every first day of the week and blessing food before I ate it... but as I got older, I saw that most of the people who attended sermons lived the exact opposite way of how their 'faith' told them was appropriate. At first, I called them out openly, hoping the shame would shun them from their hypocrisy, but all I accomplished was getting myself slandered."

"That's horrible!" Michal gasped, righteous fury welling with her.

"Then, one day, I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I overheard a plot by a priest conspiring with a nobleman to assassinate the king, but I guess they found out that I knew. So when I went to warn the king, they framed me, accusing _me_ of _their_ crime. The king ordered that I should be executed, but I managed to escape with the help of a beggar who saw it all happen. As thanks, I promised the man that I would protect his family, and all of the people, in the outer city, since no Guard patrol walks the crime-ridden streets out there. I donned this mask and began to call myself 'the Raven,' after the ancient order of secret guards of the king that no longer exists."

"So..." said Michal quietly, "Who _are_ you? I mean, what's your real name?"

At this point, the others were listening intently.

"It's not that we want to turn you in." said Michal, "I just wanted to know for... I don't know... Never mind..."

After a long pause, the Raven spoke up, "Alistair. My name is Alistair Cromwell."

"The son of Lord Blake Cromwell?" asked Jared. "It was said you were kidnapped for ransom and never returned."

Alistair scoffed, "You honestly think they would _publicize_ that an attempted assassin managed to escape the supposedly 'impervious' prison in Dorenkeep? They had to save face and still explain how I went missing. They knew that if I ever turned up, there would be so much commotion, it would be no trouble to find me."

"I see..." said Jared thoughtfully.

Brock sat in silence, observing his new companions. His eyes narrowed in thought as he examined their interaction. _They're so... different from anyone in dwarven society... The way they accept one another, even the church people who are supposedly called by their deity... They treat one another as equals, even the nobleman escapee... Such respect, like that I've never- _Brock's thoughts were abruptly interrupted. Something had changed in the atmosphere. He straightened himself and gazed into the dark of the trees, honing not only his natural vision but also his dwarven ability to see heat. _No bodies out there... _

Then, it hit him: there were _no bodies_ out there, not even animals. _That_ was what had changed and caught his attention; the animals had gone, leaving the forest eerily silent.

Brock stood and lifted his axe from the ground, alerting the others that something was wrong. Michal and Jared lifted their hammers, and Alistair whipped out his knives.

"What is it?" asked Sapphire in a whisper.

"Something's wrong out there." Brock hushed.

As the party stood tensely around the fire, a subtle smell wafted on the breeze, growing ominously stronger as the seconds passed.

"Sulfur." Jared observed, sniffing the air.

Then, they heard it: the vile sound of moaning and shuffling through the forest all around them. One by one, corpses shambled out of the forest on all sides.

"We're surrounded!" Alistair gasped.

"Oh this is good stuff!" exclaimed Sapphire, pulling out her quill and inkwell. She began scribbling furiously in her notebook.

Jared looked over in disbelief, "What are you doing? Help us!"

"I can't!" Sapphire insisted.

"You mean that sword is just for show?"

"No, but if I taint the epic, I have to put myself in it, and that goes against the code of the Bard's Guild."

Jared huffed, "Of course it does!" He shook his head frustratedly and then glared at the zombies that poured from the forest mere feet away from them.

As the monsters came ever closer, the group noticed that the grass beneath their feet faded to a sickening, gray-brown and withered. The colorful leaves on the trees and on the ground also took on the same hue, and the branches and trunks of the trees cracked as they twisted and contorted as though also withering at the presence of the abominations.

Jared's pupils faded into light as his eyes began to shine. He turned in a full circle, looking to the woods beyond. "The horde extends for miles! They're desecrating the very forest!"

Brock scowled and cursed under his breath, "Just like my home..."

"We're not giving up!" shouted Michal. She extended her hand toward the army of undead. Her eyes glowed with holy light, and silvery-gold fire swirled around it as her voice echoed, "_**Turn away!**_"

Several of the zombies immediately burst into shining flames and ash. The ones that weren't destroyed burned with the fire and began to flee back into the oncoming horde, hindering the advancement of the army.

Brock's eyes flashed open. His pupils shrank, and the whites of his eyes cracked with veins of blood. His nose wrinkled into a sneer as he bellowed, "You sodding abominations! I'm gonna send you back to hell to burn!" As a trickle of foam escaped his mouth, he charged into the mob with his great axe, taking on a feral air as he sloped forward toward them.

Running alongside Brock, Jared brandished his own weapon, his eyes still gleaming with celestial radiance. "Die, abominations!" he shouted as his weapon burst into holy fire. With a swing of his fiery hammer, Jared smashed a group of zombies that immediately burst into flames from his weapon, crumbling to ash.

With rage and vigor, Brock buried his axe into zombie after zombie, tearing it back out and sinking it into yet another and another. Black bile splattered all over his bare body and face as he raged, leaping from corpse to corpse with incredible strength and distance, roaring with each fierce jump.

Meanwhile, Michal continued to cite benedictions to turn the undead. With each invocation, she felt the fire of her wrath and the radiance of her hope spill out of her very soul, manifesting physically in each magical burst.

Suddenly her attention turned to Jared as he let out a yelp from being slashed by a wraith from behind. In response, Michal extended her hammer, "_**Light heal the-**_" her echoing voice cut out in a sharp scream as she too was assaulted by a spectral being with elongated claws.

Immediately, her arms and legs went numb, and she dropped her holy symbol to the ground. Though she fought with everything in her to stand, she collapsed to the ground shortly before Jared also fell.

"Michal!" shouted Brock as he watched the cleric fall. He felt a stab into his back as another of the creatures materialized behind him.

Though he felt the necrotic poison that dripped from the creature's claws beginning to take hold, he ignored the pain and pushed through it, swinging his axe unexpectedly at the wraith behind him. The axe phased right through the ethereal being, and it inserted both of its clawed sets of fingers deep into his pectoral muscles.

Brock sneered and bared his teeth, growling. The growl rose in volume into a loud roar as he swung his axe yet again. This time, the axe connected with the creature's face. Though the weapon phased through the gaseous creature again, this time there was resistance. The wraith unleashed a piercing screech as it reeled back in pain.

With another stab from a fourth wraith to either shoulder, Brock felt the poison burn as it pumped into his flesh. "Go... for... the... faces!" Brock shouted resolutely as he dropped to his knees.

Dodging and weaving nimbly from monster to monster, Alistair's daggers met each mark with deadly accuracy. As he sliced each zombie and wraith, the blessed daggers ebbed a subtle, silver light that indicated their effectiveness against the monsters.

Enthralled with the fight and no longer writing, Sapphire watched in anxious anticipation. Finally, she was no longer able to hold herself back, "Sod the guild!" she huffed and whipped out her violin.

Vigorously, she ran the bow back and forth against the instrument's strings. The air around the instrument seemed to pulse and warp as the screeching violin's sickening tune increased to volumes only possible through the powers of mysticism.

As she unleashed her final note, the air distorted in a blast wave of sound that exploded ten feet out in all directions from the bard. All of the monsters, including the specters, within the blast were force backward, and many collapsed to the ground, dead once again.

Sapphire smiled cockily, but her victory was short-lived. With a sudden swipe of a specter that materialized behind her, Sapphire's body went numb, and she too collapsed to the ground in a heap.

The last one standing, Alistair's head swiped back and forth, analyzing the threat around him. There were zombies on all sides, with wraiths materializing by the dozens. His gaze shifted to his fallen, now unconscious, comrades. It was hopeless.

Before him, Alistair saw the mob part, making way for a maroon-robed woman to step forth. She approached Alistair calmly.

"Hello, Alistair." the woman greeted, smirking at his shock when she mentioned his name. "Yes, I know who you are, though truthfully, I doubt you know who I am." She knelt down and lifted Michal's head by the hair. "Such a pretty young woman. It would be a shame if anything happened to her."

"Who are you, witch?" Alistair demanded.

"I suppose, seeing as I know your name, that it's only fair that I share with you mine." She raised her head and looked down upon him confidently, being slightly taller than he, "You may call me Lilith."

"What do you want with us, 'Lilith'?" said Alistair through gritted teeth, "Being a necromancer, I find it hard to believe we're of more use to you alive than dead."

"How astute of you!" the elderly woman patronized. "However," her tone dropped low, "for the moment, yes; you _are_ more useful to me alive."

"Why?"

"Let's start with the basics. I know that you are coming to face me in my castle deep within the forest. I thought I might save you the trouble and bring the confrontation to you instead."

The woman dropped Michal's unconscious head and stood. She extended her bony hand and touched the man's cheek. He cringed, not only because her hand was colder than ice, but a sickening twinge resonated in his throat the moment her skin touched his.

"Here are my terms:" said Lilith confidently, "I will accept only your unconditional surrender. As you might have guessed, I knew _you_ would be the one with whom I would speak, and if you don't come quietly, I'll begin killing your friends one by one until you do, since you are really the only one I want besides the cleric..." She trailed off for a moment, then added, "In case you were wondering, by the way, I would kill the paladin last, since I know how well you two get along." She smirked knowingly, and Alistair's eyes grew wide.

"So what will it be?" Lilith concluded, "Will you surrender unconditionally, or will I kill your friends, beginning with the halfling?"

Two of the wraiths brought Sapphire's limp body over, and the woman drew a curved dagger from her sleeve, pressing it menacingly against the bard's throat.

Outnumbered and outclassed, Alistair bowed his head in defeat. "I surrender."

Lilith smiled, and with a wordless command, a wraith materialized behind Alistair and swiped him in the back. The poison ran its burning course quick and true, instantly immobilizing the rogue. Within seconds, his senses dulled, fading rapidly into an abyssal blackness.


	7. Chapter 6 - Captured

Chapter 6

Captured

Thump-thump... thump-thump... thump-thump... all that Michal could hear was the thundering drum of her own heartbeat. The world was black and cold. The beating persisted, thumping in her ears and throat with what seemed like the intensity of an earthquake.

Michal focused on controlling her senses and attempted to drown out the deafening noise. She held her eyes shut, fearful of what she might see, should she open them.

As the sound of her heartbeat faded, Michal could hear the monotone of hollowness. She opened her eyes to a blurry, dark world. It was dank and cold, and she smelled fire and stone.

When the world came into visual focus, Michal saw that she was lying on a stone floor with straw sparsely scattered all around. In the corner was a pile of straw, and next to it was a bucket of fresh water.

She pulled herself up on an elbow and brushed her hair behind her ear. The door was made of iron bars with a sturdy-looking lock.

_A cell?_ Michal looked down to see that she was at least free to move about as she pleased, being unchained, though there were chains with manacles on one end built into the wall.

The sound of a lock clicking echoed through the hollow cell block, followed by the creaking of an iron-hinged, wooden door opening. The door shut and locked, and footsteps sounded from the stairway that spiraled up through the tunnel in front of Michal's cell.

Shortly, an old, bearded man with transmutation runes tattooed on his bald head walked through the tunnel, carrying a candelabra in one hand and a glass vial and dagger in another. As he came closer, Michal saw through the open part of his shirt that he also had inscribed the same runes on his chest.

Michal stood and approached the door of her cell, stepping into the light of the torch on the wall. "Who are you? Where are my friends?"

"All in good time, dear." the man smiled menacingly, and the folds in his aged, tan skin caused the shadows around his face to make his visage into something demonic.

Michal stepped back warily. "Where is the witch?"

"Lady Lilith?" the man asked, turning around and setting his candle stand on the stone table near the entrance to the tunnel. "She is tending to our other 'guests'."

Michal rushed to the door of her cell and grabbed the bars, violently shaking them, "What have you done with them?"

The man turned around, and before Michal knew what was happening, his hand seized her right hand that grabbed the bars and pulled it further toward him. Quickly and cleanly, he pressed the knife into her hand and sliced.

Though Michal tried to jerk away, the man was astoundingly strong for his age. He held her hand over the vial and collected the blood that trickled down.

When he was certain he had enough, he released her wrist. "That should be enough for the ritual."

"What ritual?" Michal demanded, pressing her opposite hand against the wound.

"As I stated before, all in good time."

With that, the man sealed the vial. Then, he took up his candlestick once more and turned toward the tunnel.

Suddenly, a bloodcurdling scream resounded long and strong through the castle.

"That's Jared!" Michal screamed, her eyes welling with tears, "What are you doing to him? Tell me now!" Michal extended her hand forcefully and shouted, "May the Light smite you!"

Nothing happened.

"What..." Michal looked down at her hand, perplexed. She tried again. Nothing.

"Silly girl!" the man laughed, "You don't think we prepared for your 'divine powers'?" He gestured to a rune carved into the stone floor of Michal's cell, "So long as that rune remains carved on that floor, your 'holy' powers are useless."

Again, Jared's screams echoed through the chambers, even fiercer this time than before.

"Please!" Michal begged as tears streamed down her face, "Let him go! Take me instead! I'll do anything!"

"Oh believe me," the man smiled, "I know. I _know_. Yet, once again, I reiterate, all in good time."

"At least tell me who you are!" Michal demanded.

"Just call me... 'the wizard'."

Then, the man meandered back up the tunnel from whence he came, as Jared's screams continued again and again.

"No! _No_!" Michal screamed after the wizard, "_**No**_!"

For hours, Jared's torture continued. For hours, his screams and sobs resounded through the castle.

Michal retched and dry-heaved through her crying. To hear the man who had been her father figure reduced to begging for mercy from a necromancer, to hear the strongest person she had ever known put through excruciating pain, felt like a knife wedged and twisting in her stomach and heart at the same time.

Left alone, Michal did the only thing she knew to do; she prayed. She prayed more fervently than she had ever prayed in her entire life. She felt her temple pulsing with the intensity and desire of her pleas. However, it felt like seven eternities had passed before, at last, Jared unleashed one final, weary cry of agony. His voice was hoarse from his suffering, and the scream was cut short, as though he had been gagged.

With the castle finally lulling into ominous silence, Michal was certain that morning had already come and gone, though she had no idea which morning or how long she had been in this wicked place. However, she managed to curl up in the bed of straw and fall asleep.

Jared's body writhed and convulsed violently as he stood with his wrists bound tightly over his head and his ankles bound securely to the board behind him. His heart raced as every nerve in his body burned and tingled, and with every tingle came more excruciating pain.

Droplets of blood began to emerge out of the pores of his bare skin in response to the hand motions made by the witch before him as she chanted in a dark tongue. The blood collected and then hovered through the air in trickling streams, collecting into an orb in the woman's empty hand.

As she continued to chant, the blood began to take shape. As it formed, it became a spiked, curved blade. The witch took the blade into her hand.

"You know..." said Lilith menacingly once the dagger was formed, "I had this machine constructed especially for you." She strode over to the enormous wheel that was attached to a winch that ended in Jared's wrist restraints. She cranked it one notch further, causing the machine to pull Jared's body still further taut.

The man unleashed a sickening scream of agony as he felt like his limbs would soon be torn from his body, already being pulled out of socket.

Lilith frowned mockingly, "However, it just doesn't seem to do the trick for me... Torture machines are all well and good for the inexperienced... but there's something about a _blade_..." The witch touched the blood blade to the man's face, running it up his cheek and resting just below his left eye. "There's just something about the finesse required to implement torture with a simple tool like this, a rush if you will, that one cannot achieve when all the work is accomplished by wooden cogs and rope."

In a gentle motion that drew out the pain, the woman inserted the dagger's blade behind Jared's eye. He screamed yet again at the pain as she pulled and released, pulled and released, toying with the idea of removing the eye.

"Please!" Jared gasped through blood-sputtering, mouth-breaths. His voice cracked with laryngitis, and his nose still ran with blood, making it difficult to get any air.

"Oh..." Lilith cooed, "poor baby..." She winked, and then slowly removed the man's eye, tearing each tendon individually.

Once more, Jared screamed, his throat dry from the yelling. His scream was cut short as the woman forced a black ball into his mouth and buckled the leather strap that ran through it around the back of his head.

"There." Lilith feigned concern, "Now you won't have to worry about disturbing the others anymore."

Now, it was almost impossible for Jared to breathe at all. He choked with a barky cough as his body desperately attempted to force oxygen into his lungs by any means.

"Poor, poor Lightbringer..." Lilith mused, clutching the man's gagged mouth in her bony, clawed hand, "You have remained true and held fast to your convictions and vows, and for what? Here you hang, bound on the rack, being stretched and tortured..." Lilith's nose wrinkled in a sneer, and she smiled a big, toothy grin, "You receive your just reward..." She dropped the man's eyeball to the floor and crushed in under her boot, splattering blood all over the floor. Then, she ran her finger along the streak of blood that ran from Jared's empty eye socket and licked it.

Jared's tired, swollen eye rolled up, meeting the woman's cold, unfeeling brown eyes. Pathetically, he tried to grunt something out, stifled by his gag. His body was utterly wracked with pain to the point that he felt nothing any longer; no love, no fear, no happiness, no sorrow... just emptiness. He didn't even feel the pain of his wounds that ran fresh with blood over the crust of the blood from tortures earlier in the week. His chest rose and fell weakly as he struggled to breathe, and he no longer could feel his legs, which he only knew remained due to their being bound to this horrid machine that stretched his body with each crank of the enormous, wooden wheel.

"Awe..." Lilith patronized, "Too bad you can't speak... just like your own victims!"

At this, Jared looked up into the witch's eyes.

"I see that caught your attention. Yes, I know the future, and you become the antithesis of what you were prophesied to be; you become a harbinger of chaos and destruction."

Jared hung his head in exhaustion, his eye still fixed on the witch as she cackled insidiously. In the back of his mind, the burning hunger for feeling was squelched by his mental, physical, and emotional weakness.


	8. Chapter 7 - Sacrifice

Chapter 7

Sacrifice

Michal started awake at the feeling of two thuds on the floor of her cell, followed by the slamming and locking of the cell door.

"Here," said the wizard, "have some company."

Michal looked up to see Brock, Sapphire, and Alistair, all bloodied with their hands bound behind their backs and their ankles bound together with strong ropes. Each was gagged and stripped of all weapons or armor.

Michal gasped with relief and rushed to her companions' sides. Hastily, she attempted to wake them as she untied their bonds and removed their gags. Once she was finished, she gave them water from her bucket.

"Where's Jared?" she asked worriedly.

"The witch..." Brock answered after chugging several gulps from the bucket, "She took him to her torture chamber. She's been at him for the better part of three days."

"How do you know?" asked Alistair.

"My cell had a window. I counted three days before she took me in and put me through the worst few hours of my life."

"Mine felt like days..." Sapphire shivered, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them.

"You were in for less than an hour." Brock informed.

"She didn't torture me." Alistair said, wondering why he was so special, "She just drugged me. Next thing I know, I'm waking up here... I'm still a little out of it."

"We have to get out o' here!" said Sapphire.

"Can't you or Michal use your magic?" asked Brock.

"Sorry." Sapphire replied, "I need my violin or my spell book to do anythin'."

"And this rune prevents me from accessing the power of the Light somehow..." Michal gestured to the carving on the floor.

Alistair hung his head in defeat, "Then we're doomed..."

"We can't give up hope!" Michal insisted.

"Yes we can, because we already have." retorted Alistair.

"How can you say we should hope in a situation like this?" asked Sapphire.

"Because," Michal responded, "in the end, goodness and law will always prevail!"

"Is that what it says in your precious Holy Book?" said Alistair.

"Yes, as a matter of fact!" Michal declared aggressively.

"So how can we get out o' this?" said Sapphire, changing the subject. "Let's think practically."

"We have to overcome what impedes us from leaving." stated Alistair, "I suppose the best place to start would be with those bars."

"I might be able to knock the lock with a spell I know, now that I'm free to speak." volunteered Sapphire. "I'd just have to cast it from memory."

Michal perked up, "If we can get out of this cell and away from this rune, I can access my power again!"

Sapphire immediately began muttering to herself and pacing, trying to recall her spell. After several seconds of pondering, her eyes lit up with an epiphany, "I've got it!"

"The spell?" asked Brock.

"I can't remember the exact spell," Sapphire confessed, "but I remember somethin' a fellow member of the guild once told me about how bard magic works."

"How is knowledge of the mechanics of magic supposed to help us here?" Alistair asked.

"See," Sapphire explained, "clerics and paladins draw on their faith in a deity or ideal to access their power, but a bard relies on rhythm. Magic flows like rivers in and around everythin' and everyone in the world. Bards feel that rhythm and weave it like a dance to a song. All I've got to do is get a feel for the magic flow around the lock, and I should be able to unlock it."

Sapphire approached the lock and rested her hand on it, closing her eyes. She listened to the inaudible whistle of the magic flowing in the room. It ebbed and pulsed around the rune on the floor, drawn to it, before it flowed back out in a myriad of directions, one of which being right through the lock.

As Sapphire listened to the tune the energy flow played in her soul, she felt it rise into her vocal chords, matching it on perfect pitch. As Sapphire sang her wordless song in rhythm with the magic flow, her companions watched and listened in awe. The delightful melody was the sweet release they all needed to rest their weary nerves.

With a sudden, loud _*clink*_, the lock opened. The rest of the party cringed, realizing the witch would surely hear the sound.

"She'd have to be deaf not to have heard that!" exclaimed Alistair.

"Then we should hurry." noted Brock.

As the group exited the cell, Michal felt a sudden power wash into her like the dam of her river of faith had been removed. "Praise the Light!" Michal gasped, "Now, on to rescue Jared!"

As soon as Sapphire knocked the second lock at the top of the tunneled stairway, the door opened upon a dimly-lit hallway with undead hordes from wall to wall. With purpose, the zombies began shuffling toward the party.

"_**In the name of the Light, I command you to turn away!**_" Michal's voice echoed ethereally as her eyes shone with white light.

This time, only several of the zombies in the hallway burst into holy fire. Michal's eyes widened, and her pupils shrank. These monsters were stronger and more resilient than the ones they had been fighting before.

Determined, Brock went into a rage and plowed into the mob, unarmed. Furiously, the small man tackled corpse after corpse, pummeling them into one another and into the stone walls on either side of the hallway. The sickening cracks of bones snapping and crushing permeated the air, mingled with the dwarf's raging roars.

Following suit, Alistair dove into the mob also, jumping and flipping to dodge the creatures' contagious bites. With honed accuracy, he grabbed heads, snapping the monsters' necks. He threw severed heads at other zombies and interlocked their arms in an attempt to immobilize them.

Meanwhile, Michal closed her eyes and extended her open hand toward the zombies, muttering a secret prayer to herself. As she finished, she opened her eyes and mouth wide, and her entire body became enveloped in holy fire and white light. From her back, six radiant wings like those of an eagle with feathers of light materialized. As she spoke, her voice boomed with authority, ethereally distorting to sound like both her voice and the voice of a waterfall, "_**Wicked monsters! Thy existence is an abomination before the Light! As the harbinger of its most holy radiance, I hereby banish thee to eternal damnation in the fires of the Seven Hells!**_"

A radiant flash burst from Michal's location, blinding her companions. As the light faded, Michal collapsed to the ground in the hallway, which was now completely empty, save for the two humans, the dwarf, and the halfling.

"What was _that_?" asked Brock in amazement as he rose to his feet.

Sapphire stared blankly at the unconscious priestess, "I've never even _heard_ o' magic like that!"

Alistair ran over to Michal to wake her, "Michal! Sister Michal! Are you all right?"

Wearily, Michal came to. "Wha... what happened?"

"You don't remember?" asked Alistair, astonished.

"I... I prayed that the Light would shine its radiance through me... then... hope and joy and justice and righteous fury and vengeance... and then nothing..." She heaved a heavy sigh, attempting to catch her breath.

"You destroyed all o' the zombies!" Sapphire exclaimed, "I've never seen anythin' like that in all my life!"

"We should find Jared, now," Brock reminded, "so we can get out of here! We can talk about the priestess's powers later!"

The others nodded with agreement. Alistair helped Michal to stand and get her bearings, and then the group headed down the hallway, following the permeating, putrid stench of undeath that wafted throughout the castle.

"Welcome to my torture chamber." Lilith greeted the party as they burst through the open door of the enormous, foul-smelling room littered with pain-inducing machines, "I trust you came to retrieve _that_." She gestured to Jared's beaten, lacerated body that lay unrestrained on the floor, barely moving.

"No!" screamed Michal, rushing to Jared's side.

Immediately, she began muttering prayers to herself as her voice subtly echoed through the chamber. Her eyes and hands radiated with healing light that pulsed in sync with Jared's heartbeat as his open wounds closed.

"What do you want with us, witch?" demanded Brock with a snarl.

"Want? With _you_?" the woman laughed haughtily, "You proud, stubborn dwarf! What makes you think this has anything to do with _you_? You simply had the merry happenstance of being in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Then why would you go through the trouble of torturing him?" asked Sapphire angrily, "Or me for that matter?"

"Why?" the woman parroted, "Must there be a reason? Is there _ever _truly method behind madness? Or perhaps, a better question might be, _must there always be_ method in madness?" She chuckled to herself, "I suppose, in the grand scheme of things, everything _must_ have a certain degree of method, seeing as we are all bound by the same laws, be we good or evil, lawful or chaotic." The woman's ebony lips drew into a wrinkled smirk of amusement at her own little monologue.

"Enough toying with us!" shouted Alistair, "Now, you die, foul necromancer!"

The woman paused and put her clawed index finger playfully to her chin in false pondering. "No..." she mused, "No, I don't think it will be I who dies this night... However, if _you_ wish to _un_die, I'd be more than happy to oblige."

As the statement left her lips, a puff of sulfuric black smoke exploded behind her. The cloud dissipated, and standing behind her was another army of undead; wraiths, zombies, revnants, and a slue of other kinds the group could not even identify, with the wizard at the head of the horde.

In his right hand, the mage wielded a staff of gnarled wood with a red orb implanted on the top. In his left hand, he menaced an orb of red fire that flickered with strange, black flares.

"As you can see," said Lilith confidently as she gestured to her army, "I have you outnumbered, to say nothing of my superior battle tactics and understanding of your individual limits." She glared wickedly into the eyes of each of her surrounded captives, basking in their fear and uncertainty for a moment. "I have accomplished my purposes for all of you, save the priestess. So now, I believe you are of more use to me as thralls." She leered at Alistair specifically and gave the command to her horde, "Kill them all."

The undead began to march, inching forward toward the party.

"No!" Michal interrupted with a scream, "Please! Take me instead!"

Lilith raised her hand, commanding her army to stop. "What did you say?"

"You said you still had plans for me!" said Michal as she stood next to Jared's barely conscious body, "If you promise to spare them all and let them go free, I'll stay here without a struggle as your prisoner."

"You will cooperate _completely_?" Lilith clarified.

"No!" Jared managed to shout desperately.

"Yes!" Michal interrupted.

"You can't do this!" Alistair insisted, "We can take her down here and now!"

"No..." Michal sighed, "We can't... but Jared is the Lightbringer. If you can get him to safety, _he_ can stop her."

Lilith laughed, "So is _that_ your reasoning behind your decision?" She glanced over at Jared's mangled body, "I seriously doubt that thing will ever be what it once was. He has fallen from glory, child... as has the world..."

"You can't do this!" Brock shouted at Michal.

Sapphire watched on, mournfully silent.

"Done." Lilith concluded, "I accept your offer, Sister Michal."

Before Jared could let out a cry of protest, Lilith snapped her fingers. The sound echoed loudly and clearly through the halls of the castle, and in a sudden wisp of black smoke, the four companions were gone.

"Bind her." Lilith commanded her horde, pointing at Michal, "We have much work to do..."


	9. Chapter 8 - The Lightbringer

Chapter 8

The Lightbringer

The High Church was enormous, with its stone walls that rose ten stories into the sky and its steeples that towered still further into the blue expanse beyond what Michal's limited nine-year-old vision could perceive. The sunlight reflected off the mosaic windows composed of myriads of colored shards of glass, casting rainbow beams that danced on the ground before the huge, oaken double doors.

"It's so pretty!" Michal gasped. The building seemed like a sentinel; a guardian that would forevermore watch over and protect her.

"Welcome to your new home." said Jared Lightbringer as he held the girl's hand and led her inside. The forty-something lieutenant of the Shining Shield smiled warmly as the girl's grip tightened once they entered. "The orphanage for girls is down the left corridor, in the west wing. I will take you there."

Michal liked this man. He was the one who had rescued her from that vile man who made her steal from others just to avoid him hurting her at night. He was different, with his clean, regal posture and kind, blue eyes. He made her feel safe.

"Will you stay with me?" she asked as they walked down the long hallway.

Jared chuckled, flattered, "I have to sleep on the boys' side, but the Sisters will take good care of you." Jared paused, then thought to say, "My name is Jared Lightbringer. What's your name?"

"Michal."

"Michal? Such a pretty name!"

Michal nodded, "It's engraved on this locket." She held up the dingy, gold locket that hung around her neck, "I've had it since I was a baby."

Michal opened the locket, revealing that the inside was engraved with the words, "To my beloved Michal."

The girl stroked the locket lovingly, "I kept it hidden from the bad man, because he would have taken it and just sold it."

"Don't worry." Jared assured, "I promise I'll never let that bad man get to you ever again."

Michal smiled wide, though sorrow loomed behind her shimmering, brown eyes.

"Who do we have here?" asked an older woman with black hair braided into ropes streaked with gray.

"Mother Phyllis, this is Michal." Jared introduced, "Michal, this is Mother Phyllis. She is the one in charge of the orphanage."

Michal squeezed Jared's hand and silently examined the woman in her covering, white robes inlaid with gold trim. She smelled of sweat and perfume, mingled with the musty tone of old books. The woman's face was wrinkled, and her meaty hands were rough and calloused from years of labor. However, as Michal looked into the pudgy, dark-skinned woman's eyes, she saw sincerity, altruism, and fervent, unconditional love... all traits unfamiliar in the face of an adult. It was because of this, combined with Jared's approval of the woman, that Michal took a leap of faith and let go of Jared's hand.

As she approached Mother Phyllis, Michal felt an overwhelming swell of emotions pour out all at once, inexplicably. Sorrow, grief, hurt, anger, betrayal, remorse, relief, joy, peace, the thrill of being accepted unconditionally, and so much more surged into Michal's mind and heart at the same time. Unable to hold these feelings inside any longer, Michal fell into the woman's chest and wrapped her arms as far around her as they would go. She let all of her feelings gush out in a flood of tears and sobs, relieved that the pain was over at last.

Shocked by the outburst, Mother Phyllis embraced the girl and stroked her blonde head, hushing her gently, "Ssshhh... It's okay now. You're safe, baby. You're safe."

"She's had a rough life, Mother." Jared explained.

"I know, son... I know..." She continued to stroke the girl comfortingly until Michal lifted her head when Jared began to leave.

"Jared?" she sniffled.

"Yes?"

"You can come see me, right?"

"As often as you like."

Michal smiled and then buried her face once more into the woman for a moment, before finally releasing and following the High Mother to her new bedroom.

"Jared?" asked Michal as she and the paladin walked through the church gardens one week after her arrival.

"What is it, Michal?"

"Why does everybody call you the 'Lightbringer'?"

"It's my last name, my new last name."

"Why do you have a new last name? What was wrong with the old one?"

"Nothing was wrong with it." he chuckled, "I was given the name Lightbringer, because the High Father identified me as this generation's Lightbringer."

"What's a Lightbringer?"

"Every generation, a person is born who is prophesied to restore law and order to their city in which they live. Different Lightbringers have been born different places, but every twenty years, a new one is identified. I was identified twelve years ago, and in another eight, another Lightbringer will be found."

"How do you know if someone's a Lightbringer?"

"All Lightbringers have a special power; they can channel the power of the Light itself and become a harbinger, or angel, of the Light."

"You mean you became an angel?"

"Once, yes. When my village was attacked by goblins, I channeled the power of the Light. It was extremely tiring, but it wiped out all of the goblins, and my village was saved."

"So you're not from here?"

"Not originally, no. I moved here when the High Father ordered it after he heard about my gift. He said I was to train as a paladin. I was already a Brother of the Light, but combat and warfare were new to me, and before that time, I had never been able to use the powers wielded by a cleric."

"Is Mother Phyllis a cleric?"

"Yes, she is."

"What's her power?"

"She heals others with her faith. That ability also lets her feel others' pain."

"Is that how she always knows when Jason has stolen an apple from the pantry?"

"I wasn't aware she was using her ability for _that_," Jared chuckled, "but yes, she could, if she wanted to."

"So... are you going to be a great hero someday?"

"Maybe."

"Then I want to be at your side, forever and always!"

Jared smiled paternally as he echoed thoughtfully, "Forever and always..."

"Michal!" screamed Jared as he awoke in a cold sweat, panting heavily. Every muscle and tendon surged with sharp pain at the abrupt motion, and his side throbbed involuntarily, causing Jared to wince.

"Easy." Brock hushed, "Easy. You've been out for a whole day and a half."

Jared examined his surroundings. He was lying in his bed in his room at the High Church in Dorenkeep. There was a glass of water on his nightstand, beside a basin which was also filled with clear, clean water. Standing next to his bed was Brock, and the Raven leaned against the far corner of the room, having nodded off.

Jared brought his hand up to his left eye socket and felt the bandages wrapped around his head over it. _So it wasn't just some horrible nightmare... _Then it hit him, _It __**wasn't**__ just some horrible nightmare!_ "Where's Michal?" he exclaimed.

"Don't you remember?" said Brock, his eyebrows furling with sorrow, "She volunteered to stay behind so that the witch would release us. Then, we appeared in the middle of the High Town square. Alistair and I carried you here. You were barely conscious."

"No!" Jared wailed, "No! Michal!" He sobbed and slammed his fist on the nearby nightstand like a hammer. "Why?" he demanded to the sky, "Why was I unable to channel the power of the Lightbringer when I needed it most?"

"Power of the Lightbringer?" asked Brock, "What's that?"

Jared hung his head in defeat and sighed again wearily, "It's the power of the chosen one to channel the power of the divine Light itself, transforming the vessel into a harbinger of goodness and law..."

"You mean like what Michal did to destroy all those undead in the hallway?"

Jared glared into Brock's eyes directly, "What did you say? Did you say that Michal transformed into an angel of the Light?"

"Yeah. She did it when we were trying to rescue you."

"_That's_ why I couldn't access the power... A new Lightbringer... _She's_ the next Lightbringer..."

"Isn't that a good thing?"

Jared sighed with frustration, "No, Brock... It's one of the worst things that could have happened, because now, the next Lightbringer is in the clutches of a sadistic necromancer!"


	10. Chapter 9 - Inquisition

Chapter 9

Inquisition

"So, make sure I am understanding what you tell me now;" clarified the High Father after Jared and the rest of the party informed him of what had transpired, "Michal manifested as the next Lightbringer and then sacrificed herself in order for the rest of you to be freed?"

"Yes, Your Grace." Jared nodded.

"This is indeed serious and troubling..."

Jared straightened himself formally and stated, "High Father, the Raven has informed me that he believes the necromancer may have connections to individuals within the city who inform her at what times the city is most prone to attack. These individuals could be anywhere or anyone, including even members of our own government. I believe it is now necessary to invoke the rite of Inquisition."

"What's that?" asked Brock.

"It is used in times of war, sir dwarf." the High Father explained, "If the church deems that the government may be suspect or unfit to address the challenge at hand, the captain of the paladins may invoke the right of Inquisition, which establishes martial law under the Shining Shield and grants the captain the authority to arrest and interrogate anyone he suspects... by any means necessary."

"That sounds a little extreme." Sapphire observed.

"Extreme?" Jared exclaimed in disbelief, "_Extreme_? How extreme do the circumstances have to be before it is appropriate? Right now, the Lightbringer is held in captivity by a necromancer who assaults our city freely, possibly aided by those within our own walls."

"I agree." nodded the Raven, "In extreme times, extreme measures must be taken."

"Very well." concluded the High Father, "I shall inform the king and the royal council immediately."

The stone chamber was dark and cold, warmed only by the pool of black-crimson liquid that was circled by the cultists in their black, cowled robes. The coppery reek of blood hung sickeningly heavy in the stagnant air. Dim candles lined the outer walls of the circular room on their golden candlesticks embedded into the brick. The subtle hum of the men as they chanted in an ancient, guttural language made the walls and floors buzz in rhythm with the foreboding incantation.

With sudden force, the door to the hidden chamber burst open, and Jared Lightbringer, the Raven, Sapphire, and Brock charged in with weapons drawn. The cultists were caught completely off guard and ceased their chants abruptly.

Swiftly extending his arm and shouting something in a dark tongue, the head cultist caused a stream of blood from the pool to shoot forth toward Jared. It solidified into a javelin that nicked the paladin's cheek.

The cultist smiled wickedly. As he motioned with his hand, the blood trickling down Jared's cheek pulled out into the air and changed shade to a dark, purple-black before thrusting back inward.

Immediately, the veins in Jared's face and neck became prominent and black as the poison spread through his body. He collapsed to the floor at the feet of the cultist.

"Oh no you don't, boyo!" Sapphire shouted. She screeched her bow across her violin strings, and a shock wave reverberated through the air, blasting them all to the floor.

Then Brock jumped over the bard from behind and swung his axe in a rage. As he jumped powerfully from cultist to cultist and sliced into their backs and chests, they fell, one by one.

"Here!" shouted the Raven, tossing a vial through the air to Sapphire, "Have him drink this! It's an antitoxin!" He turned and jabbed his dagger into the throat of a nearby cultist, causing it to gush with blood. Then, he threw two more knives into the chests of two oncoming cultists.

Sapphire knelt down and gave Jared the antitoxin. He awoke, sputtering, then stood, thanked the bard, and picked up his hammer, bashing it into the head of a nearby cultist.

Within minutes, the cultists were dispatched, with only one left standing. Jared approached the man, the ruby in the center of his new eye patch glimmering in the dim light. He tore away the man's cowl, revealing his face.

"Lord Harrowmont." Jared pointed accusingly at the council member, "I find you guilty of political corruption; practicing the forbidden art of necromancy; attempting to mount an insurrection against His Majesty, King Rorek; and High treason against the kingdom of Doren. For these crimes, you are placed under arrest." He drew a pair of manacles and clamped them onto the vengeful lord, "You will be interrogated and tried for your crimes... and _when _I find you guilty, you will be put to death." He turned to the Raven, "Take him away!"

As the Raven led the man out of the chamber, Sapphire approached Jared, "I don't see any hidden passages or secret hallways or cells... Michal isn't here."

Jared cursed under his breath. Then in a sudden outburst, he threw his hammer with all his might against the stone wall. It implanted firmly.

"Why?" he demanded, "Why can we not find her?"

"Maybe these cultists aren't actually under the witch?" suggested Brock.

"No!" Jared sneered, "They know _something_, and I will extract the information from Lord Harrowmont by _any_ means necessary."

The iron grate wall burst open in the sewers beneath the city of Dorenkeep as Brock tackled it over with a mighty roar. The grate splashed into the murky, smelly water, echoing the splash throughout the hollow caverns.

"Where to now?" asked Sapphire, holding the lantern up so that the beams shone into the dark beyond.

The yellow beams fell onto a small figure wrapped in a dingy, worn blanket. The figure shivered nervously as another, larger figure crawled over, also wrapped in a tattered blanket.

The Raven reached down and tore the blanket away, revealing that the larger figure was a human woman clothed with rags. Her face was stained with dirt and grime, and her blue eyes betrayed her fear as she grabbed hold of the smaller figure in the blanket and clutched it tightly. The Raven reached out and moved the blanket away from the smaller one's face, revealing a little boy, probably the woman's son.

"It's a child..." he muttered in disbelief.

Sapphire walked warily further into the cavern, shining her light around. The ledges of the tunnel next to the water were lined with shacks made of old crates, with destitute families sitting huddled together. Terror flashed in their eyes as they pulled each other closer.

"The tip was wrong!" Brock gasped, "These aren't monsters! They're _people_! They're people without homes or jobs!"

"What are you doing down here?" demanded an old man's voice from the darkness. A thin, bearded man stepped into the light. He too was clothed with rags, and he leaned on a crudely-fashioned walking stick. "We have no quarrel with the rich who live on the surface. Why do you bother us?"

"We were told there were monsters residing in the sewers." the Raven explained, "We thought they might lead us to the witch who has been attacking our city for the past month, but we see now we were wrong. We will leave now."

"No." Jared's voice echoed, "We will take these people into the Inquisition to be interrogated. Manacle them."

The Raven, Sapphire, and Brock stared in disbelief.

"I said, manacle them!"

"No." the Raven defied.

Jared scowled, "I feared this might happen. So I ordered the Shining Shield's army to trail us." He turned his head and glanced behind toward the entrance of the tunnel. "Move in!" he barked.

Immediately, paladins flooded the tunnel and began shackling people.

"Take the women and children also!" Jared commanded. "None is above suspicion!"

"You can't do this!" the Raven shouted, glaring into the paladin's eye sternly.

"I _can_, in fact, because the city is under martial law right now, under _me_."

"But this goes _against_ every law of the city!" the Raven shouted.

"I _am_ the law of this city!" Jared responded harshly.

"He's right!" Sapphire nodded, "It started out with corrupt politicians and cultists, but when they didn't know anythin', you turned your attention to innocents! It's true, you're both maker and keeper of the law, but that don't mean what you're doin' is right!"

"You're not thinking clearly!" Brock added, "In your desperation to find Michal, you've begun to terrorize the city you swore to protect!"

The Raven whipped out his daggers. "You've been putting others through exactly what Lilith put you through, trying to extract information from these people that they don't have, and now you're even doing it to innocent civilians! You're not taking these people anywhere, unless you want to go through me to do it!"

This was the final straw; out and out betrayal. Jared glared at the Raven for a moment.

Neither averted his gaze.

Jared looked over at one of the paladins and pointed at the Raven, "Arrest this man! He is Alistair Cromwell, a known fugitive of the law and accused of conspiracy to assassinate the king!"

Alistair felt like a knife had just been plunged into his chest. He stared in disbelief at the captain of the Shining Shield.

Immediately, Alistair was swarmed with paladins, who disarmed and shackled him. They tore away his mask, revealing his face.

"The captain was right!" exclaimed one of them.

"Take him with the others to the Inquisition!" Jared ordered.

"What are you doing?" demanded Brock, brandishing his axe.

"Stand down, dwarf," Jared commanded in all seriousness, "unless you want to be arrested for obstruction of justice."

Brock glared silently as Alistair, along with the beggars, was led away by the Shining Shield, leaving him alone in the sewer with Sapphire. Sapphire simply stared in disbelief with mouth agape at what had just happened as the echoes of the throng faded into the darkness.

"No, Jared! No!" Michal screamed into the scrying orb Lilith held to her face. She pulled against the chains that bound her wrists to opposite sides of a runic circle carved into the stone floor of the torture chamber in Lilith's castle.

"Do you see now?" Lilith hissed, "How quickly this man prophesied to bring law and order has rejected the tenets of your faith? How easily he has betrayed your own companions, _his _own companions!" There was an odd, subtle inflection of sorrow in the witch's voice as she continued on, "I warned him that he would betray you. I warned him that he would become a harbinger of doom and chaos, yet he refused to heed my words."

"He wouldn't do that!" Michal insisted. As she knelt on the floor, she pulled once more on her restraints futilely. Then, she hung her head and whispered to herself, "He _can't_!"

"Can he not?" Lilith yelled sharply, "Yet here you see that he _has_! Look at it! Take it in! Feel the seething betrayal of your once-revered father figure now fallen into sin and the service of the Darkness in the name of order and law at the expense of goodness!"

"He's just desperate! His intentions are good though!"

"Desperation has driven many men to the side of Darkness, and even the best intentions are not enough in themselves to justify evil actions. The paladin has no excuse."

"But he still uses his powers. So, the Light must be on his side!" Michal speculated in an attempt to justify Jared's actions.

"Magic is magic is magic." Lilith declared through gritted teeth, "Soon enough, you will see that even access to the divine can change on a whim. For, the world's only divine morality is not merely the battle of the Light against the Dark, and just because a paladin is still able to do what he has before does not mean his allegiance has not shifted."

"You drove him to this!"

"Did I?" Lilith's eyes narrowed as she knelt down to face Michal nose-to-nose, "Did I_ really_ drive him to this course of action, or is it just that he would have taken this path, regardless of my role or not. After all, it is trial that reveals quality of character, but character is shaped in secret, when the heart knows not what lies ahead and the road seems smooth before your feet. I believe he would have taken this course of action, no matter how things played out."

"I don't." Michal defied.

"Do you not?" Lilith queried. She stood and looked down menacingly at the bound priestess, "Time is written in stone, dear girl. Its course is set and inescapable. Nothing can ever change; for it is all predetermined from the founding of its being."

"I can't accept that! The Light would never dictate that a person _must_ be evil! We have been granted the ability of choice from creation!"

"So stalwart in your beliefs!" Lilith observed. "Tell me, child, if you were given the chance, do you think you would be able to prevent these events from unfolding?"

Michal stared skeptically before answering slowly, "Yes..."

"Then I will bestow upon you a gift." Lilith reached into her long, loose sleeve and drew out the vial containing Michal's blood. "I trust you remember this?" She whisked it back and forth in the air. "With this vial, I will perform a blood ritual, sending you backward in time seventy years, to the time when all of these events first began to take their course. If you can find me there and then, and you are able to somehow stop me, all will be set aright. What is more, if you succeed, this very moment will never have happened, and you will return to this present day without any of this having taken place. However, if you fail, you will be cursed to live out your days until this happens yet again, as it was ordained, powerless to stop them, forced to watch the world you helped to build crumble at my hands through your aged eyes."

The wizard approached the carving. "We are ready."

"Excellent." Lilith smiled, handing the vial of blood to the wizard.

He knelt down poured it into the grooves of the rune in the floor. Then he stood and pulled out an ominous-looking spell book. He chanted its words as he read, and the blood began to glow with black and red light, pulsing in rhythm with Michal's heartbeat.

Slowly, the blood filled the rune in beneath the priestess, and flare of black-red flame began to burst up in random spots all over the rune. With each burst, Michal felt her heartbeat deafeningly in her ears and neck, and she began to taste the metallic twinge of blood in the back of her mouth. She choked and sputtered as blood burst from her throat when she coughed, spattering it onto the stone floor.

The wizard continued his dark chant, and Michal began to feel her flesh tear away from her body in ribbons, as the fire bursts became steady pillars that entwined and rose from the rune's border like a tornado that grew and grew, closing in on her.

As the flames reached her hands, they caused her skin to catch with the black fire. It was cold and sickening and hot, and it seemed like Michal could hear the screams of a thousand people in the crackling roar of the tornado.

The wizard's voice began to echo through the chamber as it dropped in pitch. Then, in a final blast of black and red fire, Michal unleashed a scream of agony that suddenly cut of as the fire instantly dissipated.

The remnants of her scream echoed hollowly through the chamber, mingled with the clank of the empty shackles as they fell to the stone floor. The rune on the floor was gone, as were the priestess and her blood.


	11. Chapter 10 - Song of Heroes & Hardships

Chapter 10

Song of Heroes & Hardships

The Broken Mirror was filled with the steady hum of conversation and the stale and rugged smells that seemed ingrained in the wood of the building itself. There was a draft from the frequently opening and closing doorway, and the floor was wet from the melted snow that was tracked in on the boots of those who entered.

Sitting in a corner booth next to the huge, lit hearth, Brock toyed with the fur on the mantle of his thick, winter sarcs. It had been two months since the founding of the Inquisition and the establishment of martial law in Dorenkeep. It had been one month to the day since Jared betrayed his companions and arrested Alistair after revealing his secret.

With a heavy heart that mulled over the events of the last two months again and again, Brock stared hollowly into his undrunken stein of ale. He gazed into the reflection staring back at him. His eyes were hollow and sad.

After several seconds, the fur-clothed dwarf set his stein on the table and dragged his axe across the floor to the foot of the hearth, where his friend, the Blue Bard, whined out a sad, subtle tune on her violin thoughtfully. He sat next to her and leaned his chin on his axe's hilt, listening to Sapphire as she played her melancholy tune.

As the piece ended, Sapphire looked over at Brock. Defeat and hopelessness hung heavy in her deep, blue eyes.

"Why are we here?" Brock finally asked after a long pause.

"What do you mean?" Sapphire returned.

"Why are we still living in a city that neither of us calls home, when we've lost our companions and our reason for persevering? I'm a wanderer and need no shelter; you're a traveling bard who could get a free room in any tavern or lodge in the country. We could leave anytime we choose... So why do we stay?"

"I suppose we're not willin' yet to give up hope."

"Hope? We tried to do good, and we failed. There's nothing left to hope in."

"When there's nothin' more to hope in, that's when you hope for hope's sake. It's called faith."

"Faith? We had a paladin and a cleric with us! If anyone knew about faith, it would have been them, but the cleric got herself captured and probably killed by now, and the paladin has established a reign of terror and tyranny over the city."

Sapphire seemed to ignore the tail end of Brock's statement, being lost in her own muse. She began to spin a new tune on her violin.

Though subtle and soft, the tune was oddly alluring, and the hum of the tavern hushed away as the patrons all listened to the bard as she played. The tune was haunting and beautiful, yet stirring and confident all at the same time.

Then, in a voice that sounded like that of the most beautiful siren, she began to sing,

"_In the dark_

_Of the night,_

_We will trek_

_The path of light,_

_Though storm clouds may shadow our way,_

_And though the night_

_Feeds our fears_

_And the darkness_

_Brings us tears,_

_We never, no never, will stray..._

_We never, no never, will stray_

_From the path,_

_Though we see_

_The aftermath_

_Of those gone before us who failed._

_Still, we will stand strong and prevail."_

The violin's fluid notes strung together and danced like invisible ribbons through the air of the room. The listeners were captivated, watching on as the bard continued her song with an instrumental solo, seemingly pouring her emotions and even her very soul into the music.

Sapphire's bow rose and fell gracefully along her instrument's strings. With all of her skill and all of her talent and all that was in her, she poured everything of her being into the song. The outside world faded. For this brief moment in time, there was only her, her violin, and a dammed river of emotions and thoughts too deep and complex for mere words. In this music, right now, she allowed the dam to collapse and poured her expression out freely, allowing any who would listen and empathize to feel the secret thoughts of her heart.

Having expressed those thoughts and feelings that had been inexpressible except through music, Sapphire continued with the song's conclusion, entering the bridge,

"_When villains_

_Rise up,_

_When heroes_

_Are dead,_

_When all seems hopeless,_

_And dawn is red..._

_Still we will_

_Persevere,_

_Though ahead_

_The path's unclear._

_We'll look for_

_The coming day,_

_And never, no never, no never, no never, no never, no never, we'll stray..."_

As the last note of the song hung in the air and trailed off, the normally rowdy tavern was utterly still. The patrons looked on with awe, still feeling the residual expressions Sapphire had flooded into their hearts.

Then, one by one, patrons began clapping, until the entire tavern roared with the thunderous applause for the halfling bard who managed to touch the hearts of men. Some threw flowers or even money, yet Sapphire simply gazed into Brock's eyes, seeing if _he_ had understood why she had sung as she had.

The Dwarf's face looked back, expressionless, save for the tears that welled in his eyes. He inhaled deeply and let out a sigh.

There was a pause.

Finally, Brock broke the silence, "That was beautiful, Sapphire."

The halfling smiled sympathetically, "Thanks."

The two just sat and stared at one another for a moment.

Then, Sapphire turned away and began twisting the fur lining of her royal blue, winter coat awkwardly. She knelt down and picked up her dark blue gloves and slid them over her hands like a second skin, actively averting her gaze.

Brock continued to sit and watch the bard as she donned the remainder of her winter clothes. There was something about this woman that allured him in a way that no other woman before had been able to do. Was it her beauty? No, it couldn't be that. Brock had met plenty of beautiful women who were more than willing to bed down with a muscle-bound dwarf. No, it was something more than her outer beauty... something that _made_ her beautiful. It was something on the inside that showed on the outside...

"Ready to go?" asked Sapphire, interrupting Brock's thoughts.

"What?" he started, "Oh, right. I'm ready." He paused. "Where are we going again?"

"We're breakin' Alistair out o' jail!"

The stone floor was warm... so oddly warm. Wearily, Michal opened her eyes to the light that glared rudely into her face. Her entire body ached, and her muscles were tense, but she forced herself onto her elbow and attempted to focus her vision.

It was daylight and warm. The refreshing scent of rain mingled with the floral aromas of blossoms and buds as they wafted on the mellow breeze.

Michal glanced around. She was in the upper level of a ruined castle. _Wait..._ She examined the layout of the half-crumbled room and the lower levels that she could see through the holes in the floor. _Is this... Is this __**Lilith's **__castle? Why is it in ruin? Where are the torture devices and candles and undead?_ Michal looked at the open forest below her through the gaping hole in the wall. _The forest is green and uncorrupted by necromancy..._

Shakily, Michal stood. The unstable floor below her fell a little, and bits of rubble dropped, clacking on other stones as they tumbled into the abyss, the sound echoing through the empty ruin.

Michal carefully navigated her way through the labyrinthine, crumbling castle as she made her way to the bottom level and then out through the open wall in the front. She stood before the forest, unclear of where she even was in relation to Dorenkeep, assuming Dorenkeep was still here.

Suddenly, Michal remembered Lilith's words, _"I will perform a blood ritual, sending you backward in time seventy years, to the time when all of these events first began to take their course. If you can find me there and then, and you are able to somehow stop me, all will be set aright." _Michal paused, rehashing the words in her head again and again, _So she sent me back in time..._

As Michal thought to herself, she was interrupted by a new scent that caught the wind. This one was foul and reminiscent of sewage mingled with wet dog.

Trying not to retch, Michal examined her surroundings. Behind her was the ruined keep, and immediately before her lay Desmer forest. Its trees towered high into the sky with thick, leaf-laden branches that obscured the sun overhead and dowsed most of its light so that only faint glows trickled through the treetops.

At first, Michal could see nothing, but then, _it_ moved! Though unsure of what _it_ was, Michal was not certain she wanted to find out.

Immediately, Michal broke into a sprint, her chain armor clinking as she ran. It jostled with each step, jerking heavily down on her body with each fall after its rise.

It was not long before Michal's decision to run was rewarded with the answer of what had been peering at her through the woods.

A goblin riding a warg burst forth from the trees the moment the priestess burst into a run. The goblin shouted and chanted in some strange, primitive language as he pursued the girl.

Michal glanced behind her. That was a mistake. As she looked back, she saw the warg's bloodthirsty, yellow eyes. It unleashed a howl, its saliva stringing between its upper and lower rows of vicious teeth. Her heart seemed to stop beating, though her feet continued to flee. Michal darted suddenly into the oncoming woods, hoping to lose the beast in the trees. It didn't work.

The monster crashed through the fallen and leaning stumps and logs as though they were paper. All the while, the goblin held tight to his reins, chanting as he bobbed up and down on the beast's back.

Michal's chest throbbed and burned, and her muscles, still tight and weary, began to cramp up. Without any hope of outrunning these two, Michal stopped and turned around.

She tried to choke out a prayer or benediction between gasps for air, but nothing came. With all that was in her, Michal silently plead to the Light for mercy and protection in this dire straight.

The warg pounced into the air, jaws open and heading for the priestess. Mid-flight, Michal's prayer was answered, and the beast erupted into holy fire. The fire extended to the rider, and both fell to the ground in a silvery, burning heap.

Michal fell to her hands and knees to catch her breath. Though the woods were not infested with undead, apparently there were other creatures here that were equally as deadly that had been driven off by the witch. _Perhaps she killed them when she repaired the ruin and established it as her castle?_

Once Michal had caught her breath, she took everything in. She was lost, not only in this forest, but she didn't even know what time it was beyond being seventy years in the past. What had life been like then, or rather, now?

Defeated and mournful, Michal's eyes welled with tears. She would never see her friends again. She would never see Mother Phyllis or the High Father or Brock or Sapphire or Alistair. She wouldn't see Jared again either.

_Jared... _Michal began to sob, _How could he betray his vows? He was the __**Lightbringer**__! How could the Light allow this? What could have driven him to it?_

Hopelessly lost and alone, Michal began to try to lift her spirits by singing between sobs,

"_Praise to the Light of Heaven,_

_Holy, just, and true._

_Thy brilliance shines. Then flees the Darkness._

_So we honor You._

_Thy radiance and mercy_

_Will guide us on the way_

_Through this life's path_

_Until we see the dawning of the day."_

As Michal knelt alone in the woods and continued to sing between sniffles, her heart remained heavy. For the first time in her entire life, she felt utterly alone.


	12. Chapter 11 - Walter

Chapter 11

Walter

Walter was a budding mage of twenty from Dorenkeep whose studies had brought him out of his dark, dusty library into the bright, wide world. Presently, it seemed that the world was not so bright and overly wide as he trekked through the Desmer forest, searching for a very rare, very special kind of mushroom that he required as an alchemical ingredient. However, try as he might, he had henceforth been unable to procure said reagent.

"How difficult can it be to find a single, lousy mushroom?" he huffed to himself, "After all, it's not like they have legs with which they are capable of walking off or wandering the woods that I might perchance miss one..." He removed his spectacles and exhaled on them, then wiped them clean on his green and yellow robes. "Terrible business, this! Filthy, nasty birds with their unnaturally-colored excrement and their obnoxious, maddening twitters! Curse them all! And the pollen!" He brushed his bushy, wispy, brown beard frantically, attempting to rid himself of the vile plant sperm that had accumulated in his beard, "All this filthy, vile pollen!"

Walter had always been incredibly meticulous about how he kept up his beard, especially since he had lost all of the hair on his head three years ago during a freak, magical experiment gone wrong. "Accursed little mage!" he muttered to himself, recounting the incident, "That's the last time I let the university pair me with a gnome! From now on, it's strictly humans for me! I'm sick of being paired with sub-mediocre sorcerers! I'm a wizard, dash it all, a _wizard_!"

Once he paused for a breath, a subtle sound fell upon Walter's ears. It was a melody... a song, sung by a young woman.

_Don't do it, Walter!_ he told himself, _You've heard all the stories. Do you really want to go and risk it being some fey creature that might sweep you away to their vile dimension of glitter and trees?_

Walter weaved his head back and forth in conflict with himself, and finally, his better judgment gave way to his inherently insatiable curiosity that demanded appeasement. With each step, Walter railed against himself more and more, _What are you doing? Sod that curiosity of yours! It's your idol, you know that? You continually give in to it, sacrificing your time and efforts on wasted attempts and dead ends! Stop! Why are you still going? I mean it! Stop! __**Stop**__! Oh bother! You know what? Sod it all!_

As he continued his disturbingly neurotic conversation with himself, it escaped into verbal expression, rising in volume and intensity with each sentence, "Just go! Go ahead and do what you want! See if I come to help you when you need it most, you sodding, pompous fool! You easily distracted, malignant-"

As Walter burst through the last bush that stood between him and the answer to his question, he found himself in a clearing with a girl, not much younger than he, kneeling on the ground. She looked up at the wizard and sniffed as a tear escaped and ran down her cheek.

"Why were you just yelling at yourself?" she asked with a perplexed expression in between sniffles.

"Well, I, uh-" Walter stammered, then straightened himself, "I have no need of explaining, nor elaborating, the extent, machinations, nor reasons or lack thereof pertaining to any or all or any combination hitherto for my verbal eccentricities, much as you have none for doing so to me about yours!"

The girl's eyes narrowed, darting back and forth, trying to look into the man's soul and examine if he were genuinely insane, or merely just odd.

"What I mean is," Walter corrected himself, catching his own rudeness, "my name is Walter." He extended a hand formally after wiping it on his robe to clean it.

"Michal." the girl responded, extending her own as she stood.

"You look like the clerics from the church."

"I am." Michal nodded.

"The church is allowing _women_ to become clerics now? Well, that's new."

_Oh, right!_ Michal remembered,_ They didn't even __**have**__ a Sisterhood of the Light until fifty years ago._

"So, what brings you here to these woods?"

Michal surely couldn't tell him that she was from the future, figuring she might mess something up in the future. So, unable to think of a way to verbalize a sufficient excuse, Michal simply pointed at the charred warg and goblin corpses.

"Yargh!" the man squealed, achieving a pitch even few women were able to reach. "What is that?"

"A goblin and a warg, or rather, what's left of them."

He squatted down next to the corpses and took a bit of the ash in his fingers, rubbing them together. He stood and stated intelligently, "These corpses were burned with magical fire!"

"I know." Michal nodded.

"You're a mage?" he asked excitedly.

Michal stared for a moment, "No, I just told you, I'm a cleric."

"Oh, yes! That's right!"

"Have you been hit on your head before?"

"My dear, I live in a library, where the books tower stories high." He paused for a moment and snickered at his unintentional pun, then continued, "At any rate, I dare say, yes, I've had many a book assault my cranium... Why do you ask?"

"No reason..." Michal said with risen eyebrow.

"You know," said Walter thoughtfully, "It occurs to me that I have heard that goblins seldom travel alone, which subsequently begs the question, why has this one seemed to do so?"

Within seconds, Walter's question was answered as nineteen more goblins riding wargs burst from the surrounding forest. Their riders were armed with spears and shields, and though crude, their armor was metallic and strong-looking.

"So that one was just a scout." Michal concluded, "Great. Just great."

The lead goblin shouted something to his subordinates in a guttural, primitive-sounding language. The others cheered. He then raised his spear toward the two humans in the center of the circle of riders and shouted something that signaled the goblins to charge.

The army encroached upon the area where the two young people stood. The wargs menaced their fangs, while the goblins began to simultaneously chant something in their own tongue that caused the very ground to reverberate with a palpitating hum.

Without waiting for their enemies to make the first move, Michal extended her hand, and brilliant light burst from it in unison with her eyes as her voice echoed, "_**In the name of the Light, I pronounce your destruction!**_"

Three adjacent wargs, along with their riders, shone with radiant silver and gold fire sputtering from their eyes, noses, and mouths. Then, in a heap, they collapsed to the ground.

"How did you do that?" Walter exclaimed.

"For the third time," Michal huffed, "I'm a _cleric_!"

Walter squealed as two wargs pounced toward him.

Michal extended her hand and pronounced judgment on those as well, causing them to also spout holy fire. She then turned to Walter, "Can you do _anything_ useful here?"

"I'll try..." Walter muttered a spell and extended his hand forcefully.

A red ball of fire exploded from his fingertips toward a goblin and incinerated it as it flew off of its warg.

Michal grabbed a tree branch from the ground and swung it at the oncoming warg, breaking it in two against its snout. The creature yelped and then chomped down on the branch, tearing it from the girl's hands.

Michal didn't waste any time. With fervor, she picked up a rock in both hands and bashed it into the skull of the occupied warg.

Walter inhaled deeply and then blew at four more wargs that loped toward him. As his breath emerged from his mouth, his lips coated in a thin film of frost and the magic of his exhale crystallized the moisture in the air, blasting a cloud of shimmering, blue ice in a cone toward the attackers. The wargs and their goblin riders froze stiff into blocks of ice as the frost rapidly gathered and solidified on their bodies as they ran toward the mage.

As eight more surrounded Michal, she bowed her head and offered up a benediction. Then her eyes enveloped in white light and the area on which her enemies stood burst forth into yellow, shining radiance as pillars of light exploded from the earth itself.

The goblins gasped and screamed as they attempted to shield themselves from the glaring power, and the wargs immediately rushed away, fleeing into the forest toward the mountain and throwing some of their riders off as they bucked and loped away.

Seeing this spectacle, the remaining goblins fled, save for the leader, who sneered at Michal, having made his way during the commotion over to Walter. The goblin's spear was pressed against the man's heart.

"Get away from him!" Michal commanded.

"No." the goblin replied.

Michal started, astonished at the goblin's response.

"Yes, I can speak your fancy monkey-talk," the goblin laughed, "but that does not mean that I fancy monkeys who talk."

"_**I'm warning you!**_" Michal shouted as her eyes gleamed and her voice reverberated.

"Give him to us for a prisoner, and I will spare your life."

"_**Wrong answer!**_" Michal shouted, her hand spiraling with holy fire.

At the same moment, holy fire enveloped the goblin, and he burst into flames. In immediate reaction, he thrust his spear into the mage's heart, and the warg carrying him fled, carrying its blazing master on its back.

Michal rushed over to Walter, whose eyes were wide with surprise, fear, and pain. She grabbed the handle of the spear and jerked it out. Walter coughed up blood as the weapon exited his body.

"Don't worry." Michal comforted, "I'm right here."

She placed her hands over the mage's wound and pressed, praying for mercy and healing for this man. The blood that throbbed out of the wound drenched the priestess's hands as she continued her beseeching.

Tears welled up in her eyes as Michal begged for the Light's mercy, then bowed her head, feeling no power flooding her body and soul. She refused to give up! The Light had not forsaken her yet.

With renewed faith, she gave a benediction, determining in her mind that the Light _would_ spare this man, no matter what. It _must _spare him!

Slowly, Michal felt the warmth of her power flood into her body. Now confident of the oncoming healing, Michal declared once more, "_**The Light will spare the true and bring healing to all who ask!**_"

Instantly, the wound closed, and the mage jolted awake, gasping for breath and coughing up blood.

"You saved me!" He exclaimed as he looked over to Michal, "You saved my life!"

Michal smiled and sighed with relief, "I told you I'm a cleric."

"Indeed, from whence do you hail, fair maiden?" Walter queried in the most noble tone he could muster.

"I-" _Wait!_ Michal stopped herself,_ I can't tell him I'm from Dorenkeep! I'm not __**from**__ anywhere... not yet, anyway._ She pointed in the direction of the ruin, "From a castle that way."

"The ruin? No one lives there."

Michal stammered, "I... do."

"Well, that just won't do at all! I've seen that ruin before, when I traveled with the king to Hightower. We camped there, and the accommodations were absolutely atrocious, to say the least! I was nearly crushed by the falling of a tremendous boulder, or perhaps it was a portion of the wall? You never can tell with that vile place."

"Um..."

Walter began muttering to himself again. Then, in a sudden outburst, he pointed his index finger mere centimeters from Michal's nose. "I've settled the matter in my own mind! You shall henceforth reside in the royal palace of the king of Doren, with me!"

"Wait, what? Excuse me?"

"There are a multitude of extra rooms in which to take up residence within the confines of the library dormitories; the king has scholars come and stay to study for hours on end on a regular basis, but never are all of the rooms in use. Therefore, you shall come with me!"

Stricken speechless, Michal sought to say something, though her efforts only resulted in her mouth opening and closing in disbelief, mingled with muttered stammers.

Finally, she managed to blurt out, "But I can't go to the palace!"

"Why ever not?"

Frantically searching her mind for any form of excuse and being wanton, she conceded. _If nothing else,_ she told herself as the man grabbed her by the hand and began to lead her away, _you won't be without shelter and provision while you search for Lilith. Besides, who knows, I may even be able to speak with the king and warn him about the necromancer before she rises to power. _Seeing the bright side of her situation, Michal accepted her fate, "Never mind."

"Oh, you'll love it at the castle!" Walter raved, "The food is elegant and delicious! The sheets are opulent and clean! And don't even get me started on the cook, Mrs. Winter's, custard pie! It is the absolute epitome of ambrosia!"

As the wizard led his cleric friend through the forest, he continued to rant and rave in excruciating verbosity of the wonders of the Royal Palace. The silent woods resounded with the man's excitement as he sang the praises of the life of luxury of which Michal was about to partake.

Little did he or his companion realize that a silent figure hid in the shadowed bushes only feet away. The eyes scowled threateningly, and then in a flash, the creature ran off into the woods.


	13. Chapter 12 - Tyranny's Coldness

Chapter 12

Tyranny's Coldness

Wintersday was upon the country of Doren. It was a time at which the followers of the Light celebrated the brightness and warmth of the sun through the harsh winter months. It was a time at which Dorenkeep's buildings and landmarks were decorated with lanterns and candles and all manner of sources of light. It was a time at which the people of the kingdom wore their most vibrant reds and blues and greens and yellows to remind themselves of the cycle of the four seasons and how the sun, by the decree of the Light, did not allow winter to reign as the lone dictator of the weather. It was a time at which the High Church, more than other times, was flooded with the devout and nonreligious alike... making it the perfect time for a prison break from the Church dungeon that Jared Lightbringer had built for his Inquisition.

Around the corner of the main Church entrance, Sapphire and Brock hid in the alley, clothed with their warmest fur-lined clothing. They watched as the throng of humans poured into the Church for the Wintersday Eve sermon, which was to be delivered by Jared Lightbringer himself. The Inquisition Guard, the new law enforcers of the city stood at their posts outside the building, recording the name of every man, woman, and child that entered to ensure that the entirety of the populace was in attendance, as the captain had decreed must be the case, save for the dying or non-citizens.

"Look at all of them!" Brock stared in amazement, "No wonder you said this would be the perfect night to free Alistair."

"See?" Sapphire nodded, "Since this is the only time that Outer-, Low-, and Mid-Towners are allowed in High Town, it's packed to the point that even if we get caught, we could dodge out of the church and then make a break for it through the empty districts to the outside before they even know what's happened!"

With extreme care, the two made their way around the back of the church to where the dungeon had been erected on top of the site where the gardens had once been. Iron chimneys released foul-smelling, black smoke into the sky perpetually, which created a consistent, residual stench in the Church District of High Town. Unlike the stone church, the prison had walls of iron, and the only windows on the uppermost level of the four-story tall, six-story deep building ebbed a sickeningly hot, red glow at all hours of the night.

"Cheerie, ain't it?" Sapphire mused sarcastically. She quipped a little jab, "Who knew the Shrub Slayer's lair could be so menacin'?"

"Not now, Sapphire!" Brock hushed, motioning for the halfling to join him at the steamy manhole grate in the alley. He lifted the grate and then proceeded down the iron ladder into the dark abyss.

The bard sneaked over to the hole in the street and glanced behind her to see if anyone was coming. Then, with the way clear, she scurried down the ladder also, pulling the grate closed behind her.

As she climbed gingerly down the middle and lower rungs of the ladder, Brock lit a lantern with a metal hood around the light source that honed it into a moveable beam.

The sewers were dank and dark and smelled of excrement and rotten water. Dripping water and the scuttling of rats echoed coldly through the tunnels with the steady, subtle sound of slowly flowing sewage.

Sapphire and Brock clung carefully and steadily to the ledge that ran along the labyrinthine rivers at right angles. The steps were slick and carpeted with green slime that Sapphire prayed was algae but smelled otherwise. It took all that was in her not to vomit her supper into the putrid river. Brock sneered in disgust at the waste. The city was such a filthy place, and the fact that its inhabitants drained their sludge into the ocean rather than bury it to fertilize the earth and do something useful with it did not surprise him in the least.

The two navigated their way under the prison by way of the map Sapphire had "procured" from a less than savory merchant of stolen goods. True to the map's guidance, there was a service tunnel with a locked grate that opened into the lowest level of the prison. Brock snuffed the lantern as they approached the grate that ebbed a dim orange light from the inside of the prison.

The grate was just high and wide enough that Sapphire would be able to enter and for Brock to squeeze through on his stomach. For any normal-sized person, the grate would be too small, but thankfully, Sapphire and Brock were anything but normal. Sapphire unlocked the grate with her spell, and a loud _*click* _echoed through the prison.

After a moment's pause to see if any guards were stationed and heard the sound, the two entered the room full of grime-crusted sewage pipes that lined the walls and floor.

"Let's see if we can find another exit on the way back out." Brock suggested, unnerved as he wiped the green sludge off his bare chest.

Sapphire shushed Brock at the sound of approaching footsteps down the hallway on the other side of the iron door. She pressed her ear against it, then peered through the keyhole. "There's a guard comin'!"

"He must have heard your spell!" Brock whispered, darting his head back and forth, trying to find a hiding spot.

Sapphire did likewise, but all that was even in this room were pipes.

"Oh sod it!" Brock huffed.

As the guard unlocked the door to the waste room and walked through, his groin was immediately met by a solid blow from a dwarvish fist. Sapphire immediately jumped onto the man's shoulders and clapped her hands over his mouth. Then Brock brought his closed fist down on top of the man's head like a hammer, knocking him unconscious.

"Not bad for a screw-up!" Sapphire smirked, jumping off of the man's limp body.

Brock nodded and knelt down to see if the man had any keys on his person. Sure enough, he had a ring of iron keys of all shapes and sizes.

"Looks like he has every key to the prison on here!" Brock observed.

Sapphire smiled, "Lucky for us! Chances are, with the holiday and Jared's bein' so adamant about people attendin' the sermon, this might be the only guard in the whole place!"

"If we're lucky." Brock sighed. "Let's move."

Jared Lightbringer stood before the largest congregation that had ever attended a sermon in the High Church in all of history. He stroked his brown, stubbly beard regally as he observed the people still pouring into the already full sanctuary. With his new black armor with gold trim that matched the other Inquisition officers', with the exception of it being more ornate due to his being the High Inquisitor and his flowing, crimson cape with white fur trim, Jared was now an imposing – and to some, menacing – presence.

Leaning against the podium was Jared's new magical, obsidian great axe. Its blade was curved and spiked and resembled a black flame in the shape of an axe blade. At the end of the hilt was a heavy iron chain, at the end of which hung his new holy symbol, three interlocking spherical links that ended in points so that it appeared as though three separate shapes were one. It was an iron representation of the rune for wrath. The three shapes represented wrath's three potential manifestations; holy wrath, neutral wrath, and sinful wrath.

_Wrath..._ Jared mused to himself as he stared at the symbol, _It is what I will forever more be known for... Michal... I will never forgive myself for not protecting you... So help me, by the powers of all that is holy and just and by the powers of that which is amoral and even by all that is evil, if that is what it takes, I will go to any lengths necessary to see you returned home once more. For I am law; I am order; and I am now, and forever, the Lightbringer!_

Seeing that all of the congregation had assembled, Jared removed himself from his thoughts and looked out into the audience. Most were recent converts, some at the hands of the Inquisition and some in all sincerity, seeking shelter and protection from the threat of Lilith, the dread necromancer. In the front row, the High Father watched on in anticipation.

"My fellow citizens of Dorenkeep," Jared began, "on the eve of this hallowed day in our calendar, we express our gratitude to the Light for its provision of the sun and its rays during the winter months. We remember that the Light has established a natural order, in which the four seasons cycle like guardians of the climate, and with this cycle come balance and order."

All of the congregation, including the High Father listened intently as Jared explained the meaning of Wintersday. Some nodded in approval, while others remained captivated by the words of the High Inquisitor, while still others' gazes continually darted toward the officers of the Inquisition who lined the sides of the sanctuary and stood in front of the doorway to ensure that none escaped.

Jared continued, "Just as winter is our darkest season, with its cold that pierces our very souls, we are experiencing a dark, dark day here in Doren, my friends. The witch, Lilith, plagues our land, threatening our city and even our whole kingdom, yet just as the Light has provided the sun for winter, it has provided the Inquisition for this time to shine forth and remind all that a brighter tomorrow looms on the horizon. It-"

"If that's true," interrupted a scruffy, poor-looking man as he stood in the side aisle with the others of the outer city, "then where is the Inquisition in Outer Town? Still, our families are attacked daily with no response from the Church! There are so few of us now that I could number us all on five men's fingers and toes! Of the few that remain, many are carried away by the Inquisition in droves every day! To make matters worse, our one defender, the Raven, was taken by the Inquisition! Where is _our_ protection? Where is-" The man's rant was cut short as a nearby Inquisitor thrust his sword into the man's stomach at a gestured command from Jared.

The crowd gasped and began to panic. Jared raised his hands calmly, requesting silence.

The High Father rose from his seat, outraged, "Captain Lightbringer!"

"That's High Inquisitor Lightbringer to you." Jared glared.

The High Father glared back, "You have no right, nor authority, to murder innocents and certainly not in the halls of my church!"

"You mean _my_ church." Jared retorted, then turned to address the congregation, "Like the chills of winter, fear now blows harshly against our city and has already claimed some, as you have just observed, but the Inquisition provides warmth and protection to those who are faithful and obey the law, embracing order!"

"Order?" the High Father gasped indignantly, "This is not order! This is madness! By the authority vested in me by the kingdom of Doren, I hereby strip you of your rank and arms. You shall be disciplined accordingly after _I_ finish delivering an _appropriate_ Winter's Eve sermon!"

"You have no authority, because the Kingdom of Doren is now under the authority of the Inquisition, Father." Jared corrected. Then, he motioned to his guards, and two of them seized the High Father by either arm. Jared glared down at the old man, "By the authority vested in _me_, I hereby decree that henceforth, the High Church of the Most Holy Light shall be under the direct oversight of the Inquisition and strip _you_, High Father, of all rights, responsibilities, and ranks held by your now eliminated office." He looked at the guards below the podium, "Take this man to the prison for interrogation later."

"You can't do this!" the High Father shouted in a fit of rage as he was dragged away by the guards, "So help me, the Light will smite your wickedness and corruption, Jared! I swear it!"

"Oh, and _gag_ him as well!" Jared called after the guards. Then, he turned to address the congregation, opening the copy of the Holy Book that lay on the podium, "Now, if you will turn with me to the Canticle of Holy Orders, Chapter 4: Verse 10, we will begin."

An uneasy silence fell over the congregation as those rich enough to afford books opened their copies of the Holy Book, following the passage read by Jared as he continued with his sermon as though nothing were changed.

Brock and Sapphire had little difficulty navigating the prison with the guard's keys. The difficulty was in their inability to find the one, specific prisoner for whom they were searching.

"There are so many prisoners!" Brock marveled.

It was true. Since Jared and the Inquisition had taken over the rule of the city, the dungeon of Dorenkeep's royal palace had proved to provide insufficient space for all of those the Inquisition deemed "worthy of interrogation." So now, the Church dungeon was used for those whom the Inquisition felt were still in need of "questioning," while the royal prison housed those whom the Inquisition deemed "unrepentant."

Sapphire looked into the cells at the poor, pathetic people. Most of them were now asleep, but even in their sleep, their expressions were troubled. "How can anyone treat people like this?"

The prisoners held in the royal prison prior to the Inquisition's rule had all been executed to make room for those from the holy order, and now, those who were sent there were the lucky ones. At least they were provided a crust of bread and a tin of water each night. The prisoners in the Church dungeon, though, were afforded no such luxuries. They were kept barely alive, and when they weren't being tortured, or "inquisited" as Jared put it, they were chained and collared in their cells, as if they even had the strength to stand, let alone run away.

"We can't just leave all of these people here..." Sapphire whispered under her breath as tears welled in her eyes.

"We have no choice." Brock said sympathetically, "Even if we managed to unlock all of their restraints and open all of their cells, most wouldn't be able to stand. The few who might survive out to the streets would die from the cold night air."

"We have to help them, though!" Sapphire plead.

Brock grabbed the halfling by the shoulders and stared into her eyes, "Listen to me, we _are_ helping them. We're gonna find and free Alistair, and then together, we're gonna stop Jared and then we're gonna go rescue Michal and defeat Lilith. _That's_ how we're helping them, okay?"

Sapphire sniffled, holding back her tears, and hugged Brock tightly, gripping the fur of his mantle. "I know... Thank you..."


	14. Chapter 13 - War at the Doorstep

Chapter 13

War at the Doorstep

Walter led Michal through the forest for the better part of ten hours, finally reaching Dorenkeep just before the last moments of twilight slipped into the clear, starry night.

"Hurry!" Walter shouted, dragging Michal by the wrist as he burst into a run.

"Why?" asked Michal as she kept up, looking around.

The outer city was nowhere to be seen. There were only open plains beyond Desmer Forest until the city wall, which was less fortified than Michal's time.

"Where's the outer city?" asked Michal as she glanced around while they ran.

"Outer city?" Walter responded, perplexed, "What are you talking about?"

"Never mind." said Michal, "Why are we in such a hurry? We're almost to the city. Why do we have to run?"

"Where have you been living, under a rock?" asked Walter. "It's not safe out here after dark!"

"But the undead aren't terrorizing the city _yet_, are they?" Michal muttered under her breath.

"What was that?" clarified Walter.

"Um, who'd attacking the city?"

"The goblins! We're at _war_!" said Walter as though Michal should have known what was happening.

"At war with the goblins?"

"Did I stutter? Yes, we're at war with the goblins! They have formed an _army_ of inconceivable proportion! They threaten our fair city, encroaching closer and closer each day!"

"What's happening here?" Michal mused to herself, "War with the _goblins_?"

"Yes, war with the goblins, my dear girl." said King Liam after being introduced to his court wizard's savior, "Almost one year ago to the day, the goblins united under the banner of Gol'tholik, an uncannily intelligent orc strategist. Under his intimidating leadership, they assaulted our kingdom. Initially, we feared it was for our food, but these goblins have developed a craving for something far more sinister: human flesh. We first learned this when the goblins began taking children who played in the woods and one of my soldiers went looking for him. The poor sodder found the boy's half-eaten body being torn apart and consumed by the monsters... The boy was still alive..."

Michal's eyes expanded with horror and disbelief as she covered her mouth to silence her squeals that escaped from her stifled cries.

"It was at that moment that we realized something truly horrible: the goblins intended to siege our kingdom, not for plunder, but for _prisoners_ that they could breed and farm like animals... for food..."

"Why would you be out alone in the forest, when you knew the goblins were out there, looking for people to eat?" asked Michal, turning to face Walter.

"I needed to find a very rare mushroom for an alchemical formula." Walter answered. "I have a spell that makes me scentless and removes me from the notice of those I am not directly attacking. I was able to travel safely through the woods."

"Then why were we in such a hurry to get back to the city?" Michal questioned.

"The spell only works on me. I can't cast it on others."

"Oh."

"Walter tells me you are quite the wizard in your own right, Michal." the king stated as though seeking to begin into some deeper subject.

"I'm actually a cleric." Michal clarified, "It's _Sister_ Michal."

"Sister?" the king questioned, "I was not aware that the Church accepted women into its ranks."

"They don't... not yet anyway..."

"Well, though you may be a self-proposed cleric, I understand that your powers merit recognition and consideration." King Liam said regally, "You have my thanks for saving the life of my most valued librarian." He winked at Walter as though the mage were something more.

Michal nodded a quick bow. "Thank you, Sire."

"The fact that I yet remain and do not recall anything of significance or change in my life only further solidifies that the priestess has failed." Lilith laughed as she walked with the wizard through the halls of her castle.

"So, what does that mean for us today, my majestic, maleficent mistress?" asked the wizard, leaning on his staff with each step.

"It means that we progress with our efforts as planned." Lilith smiled.

The two emerged through a large doorway at the end of the hall onto a balcony that overlooked a vast, open room filled with undead monsters of all varieties, even several fleshy constructs of seemingly random anatomical design that stood two stories tall. The room reeked of bile and undeath, and the air was almost unbreathable from the putrescent poison that hung in the mist below.

"We will bring war to their doorstep, my friend." Lilith commented to the wizard, smiling wickedly, "Death and fear will be our meat, and the screams of the dying and moans of the undead will be our anthem. Our creed shall be this: 'Death to the living! Undeath to the dying!'" The witch's cackles saturated the rancid air and echoed through the dark halls of the keep, into the snowy night, foreboding her evil plan that would surely take Dorenkeep by storm.

"So, our strategy is clear?" the king asked his council of elders as he pointed at the enormous map with battle lines and notes scribbled across it as it lay over the huge table.

The council members nodded in agreement, while Michal and Walter, who had been invited to sit in, watched and listened intently.

"Then it is settled." he continued, "As for our new friend, Michal," He gestured to the girl, who had been equipped with new chain armor and a new hammer embossed with holy symbols, "she will go with Walter to the church to meet Lillian and the High Father to aid with our... special battle strategy." He turned to the council members again, "War is at our doorstep, my good lords. We must answer it with our most stalwart defenses! I am confident that my special battle strategy shall win us not only the day but also the war as a whole!"

In response to the king's speech, the council members cheered, "Here here!"

"What battle strategy is he talking about?" asked Michal as she leaned over to Walter.

"The king has devised and ingenious strategy to thwart the goblins at the very beginning. By the end, if everything goes correctly, the goblins will bow to us as our slaves!"

_What am I doing?_ Michal asked herself,_ I'm supposed to be looking for Lilith and stopping her! Why am I even getting involved in this war? History already said that the goblins were defeated handily by the king's army. _Michal paused. _But what if they won because__** I was here**__? What if the fate of the kingdom depends on my participation in this battle? Ugh! I hate time travel! Why did we tell those stories when I was a kid? If we hadn't, I probably wouldn't even be thinking about this right now and would have just done my own thing! Wait, stop! I'm doing it again! I-_

"Michal?" Walter interrupted the girl's thoughts, "Are you okay?"

Michal shook her head as she brought a hand to her forehead, "Yeah. I just have a headache."

"Do you need some herbal tea?"

_On the other hand, _Michal reminded herself, _I've got no current leads of where she might be, and here, I have an immediate chance to do some good. Besides, I've got seventy years to find her, but Dorenkeep may only have a few more nights standing. _"No thanks, let's just go and see what this strategy is."


	15. Chapter 14 - Prison Break

Chapter 14

Prison Break

The High Church dungeon was gloomy and silent as Sapphire and Brock crept through its fortified, iron halls. The two progressed through the maze of corners and doors, searching for their companion, beginning at the bottom and working their way up. The coughs and moans of the sick and dying resounded in the empty hollowness, thickening the air of sorrow that hung heavy in this despicable manifestation of a corrupt government.

As the two came upon the ground level, Brock motioned with his hand for Sapphire to stop. From where they were in the stairwell, Brock could hear two voices approaching, followed by the echoed creaking of the heavy, iron main door opening and closing. Brock shut the door before them, leaving only enough of a sliver through which to see.

From the entryway, Brock saw two black-armored inquisitors dragging the High Father down the hallway, hands manacled behind him. The two men dragged their new prisoner toward the stairwell, where Brock and Sapphire were spying.

Sapphire covered her own mouth with her hand to stifle any reactionary squeals. She darted her gaze to Brock to see if he had a plan.

The inquisitors approached the door. One of them, noticing the iron door was not only unlocked but also ajar ever so slightly, pushed the door the rest of the way open and examined the platform on which he stood. Then, he bent over the rail of the stairway to see if anyone was hiding on a lower tier.

Sapphire and Brock held their breath as the man's gaze passed just in front of where they had huddled in a corner. Had either of them been the size of a human, they would surely have been spotted.

"What is it?" asked the guard who held the High Father, "Did you see something?"

"No, but that door was ajar. So I thought I should at least check."

"Who did Captain Lightbringer have on duty here tonight?"

"Connors."

"That explains it then. Stupid rookie probably just forgot to make sure the door shut behind him."

"I'll have to report him." the first guard sighed.

"Cut him some slack. The kid's been with us what, a month maybe?"

"How else is he going to learn? Back in _my_ days as a recruit, you'd get disciplined for having your sword tarnished... and we were at war!"

"Yeah, yeah..." the other recited monotonously, "and you had to march fifteen miles to and from your post, uphill both ways. I've heard it all before."

"You young pups just need to learn some discipline and respect! How else is it going to come, if not from realizing your mistakes?"

The men's voiced faded into mere echoes as they progressed up the stairs. Brock counted each flight as the men went up. The sound of an iron door creaking open and then shutting above the two signified that the inquisitors had reached their destination floor. Both Brock and Sapphire exhaled sighs of relief at the welcome noise.

"They're on the top level." Brock whispered, referring to his count.

"Maybe that's where they have Alistair!" Sapphire gasped.

Brock nodded. "Once the guards have left, we'll head up to the fourth floor and rescue Alistair."

"What about the old man?" asked Sapphire. "He looked important. Besides, if we even just unlocked his cell and restraints, he's still capable of leaving with us, right?"

Brock pondered for a moment, then he finally nodded. "Okay."

As the sound of the door on the fourth floor resounded again, the inquisitors' conversation faded into earshot as it resumed.

"Okay, fine. We'll go find Connors and _show_ him what he did wrong."

"And...?"

"And I won't report him, _this time_."

"I knew your heart wasn't made of stone!" the first guard laughed. Then, he turned his attention to their search, "This is such a big place. Where do you think Connors is?"

"Assuming he isn't slacking off in the pipe room, I'd guess he's got to be in sub-level 3 by now."

"Then to sub-level three we go."

Sapphire's heart stopped and Brock's eyes widened at the realization that the two inquisitors were going to pass right by them unless they had some sort of immediate distraction. Both immediately began searching for anything that might help them.

Then, with a sudden burst of inspiration, Sapphire pulled a small piece of fleece from her pack and began to concentrate. Her crystal blue eyes began to shimmer as the fleece began to form into a beautiful white dress with red and gold trim. Then, the dress filled with what looked like the body of a little human child. As the illusory child ran up the steps and phased through the door of the ground level cell block, Sapphire mouthed something. From the ground level cell block, the sound of a little girl's laughter echoed.

"Did you hear that?" gasped one of the inquisitors from above.

"It sounded like a child."

Sapphire mimed controlling a marionette with her hands, and in sync with her motions, the image of a little girl wearing a beautiful Wintersday dress appeared and danced down the hall and around the corner on the ground level cell block. Through the barred window on the door, the two soldiers saw the image with the sound coming from it.

"It _is_! It's a little girl!" one of the soldiers gasped.

"She looks like one of the nobleman's daughters by how she's dressed." the other wondered, "How did she get in here?"

"What does it matter? We can figure that out later, but if she's missed and High Inquisitor Lightbringer hears what happened, it will be your head and mine on the chopping block!"

The two inquisitors rushed through the door to the ground floor to catch the lost little girl.

"Wow!" sighed Brock, finally allowing himself the luxury of breathing again. "I had no idea you could do anything like that!"

Sapphire smiled knowingly and winked, "There are a lot of things I can do that you don't know about!"

For a moment, Brock's mind was occupied with indulging the comment and affording it some degree of analysis. Then, he snapped himself out of it, shaking his head back and forth. "Do you _always_ have to flirt?"

"As if you don't like it!" Sapphire smirked. She licked her teeth seductively, trying once more to get a reaction from Brock.

Brock stared, then snorted, "Right now, our primary goal is to rescue Alistair."

"And the old man." Sapphire added.

Brock nodded, "And the old man."

"And Fluffles, my blue hippopotamus."

"And- wait! What?"

Sapphire smiled and added innocently, "Just seein' if you were payin' attention."

Brock wasn't certain if Sapphire was just trying to be brave by laughing in the face of danger or if she was just genuinely so easily distracted and amused... and to make matters worse, he wasn't sure that he disliked it completely.

The two ran up the stairwell, making every effort to remain silent. They unlocked the door at the fourth level's cell block and then rushed inside, making sure to shut the door all the way behind them.

The fourth level's cell block was unlike the others. While the other levels had one hundred cells divided amongst five blocks per floor, this had only one block of cells. The remainder of the floor was closed off, with a huge, iron door as its sole entrance.

Brock and Sapphire wasted no time in searching the cell block. This level was almost completely empty. The only cell that was in use contained the High Father, who lay on the floor with his back turned to the cell door. His hands were still shackled behind him, and his feet were also in chains. And iron collar was clamped on his neck, and he was muzzled like an animal.

"How could Jared do this?" Sapphire gasped with furled brow. She wasted no time in whipping out the key ring and unlocking the man's cell.

The High Father rolled over. His face lit up with surprise as he saw the dwarf and halfling before him, who immediately set to unlocking his restraints.

The High Father adjusted his jaw once the muzzle was removed. Then, while Sapphire began unlocking his manacles and collar, he said, "Thank you. May the Light bless you for your heroism! Who are you?"

"Brock. This is Sapphire. We're looking for a friend of ours. Did you see him when they brought you up here? He's a rogue with black, leather armor. Hes got the air of a fighter, and he's thin."

"I saw no one matching that description, but I did hear some faint moaning coming from the inquisition chamber."

"The chamber of what?" asked Sapphire as she undid the last of the locks.

"The inquisition chamber is the larger room on this floor. I have no idea what is in there. All I know is that it is where Jared Lightbringer interrogates those he arrests."

"How could you allow this to happen?" demanded Sapphire, grabbing the old man by the collar of his robe.

"It was out of my hands! When the Church invokes the rite of Inquisition, it willfully sacrifices its own position and makes itself subservient to the captain of the Shining Shield. When I allowed it, I had no idea to what extremes Jared was willing to go or how skewed his view of justice would become. He is... er, was, the Lightbringer. I was certain that the city would unite and peace would reign under his command."

"How's that workin' for you?" Sapphire quipped sarcastically, releasing the man's robe.

"We don't have any more time to discuss motives or means. We need to find Alistair _now_!" Brock reminded hastily.

Suddenly, the alarm bells of the church began chiming frantically into the winter night.

"What now?" Brock huffed.

"It's the alarm." the High Father informed. "They must have discovered you somehow!"

"Sod!" Sapphire swore. "More likely though, they _didn't _discover the girl they were after."

"What girl?" asked the High Father.

"Or else," said Brock, offering a third option, "they discovered the guard in the pipe room."

"Less talkin'; more rushin'!" Sapphire interjected.

Brock and Sapphire helped the High Father to his feet. Then, the three headed directly for the inquisition chamber.

The inquisition room was filled with all manner of torture implements and devices. Bound on the rack was Alistair. The unconscious man was badly bloodied, and his arms were both dislocated.

"This looks twistedly familiar." Sapphire observed with pity.

The High Father immediately released the winch, and Alistair collapsed to the ground. Brock rushed over and undid the restraints on his wrists and legs, while the High Father began to offer a healing benediction.

The High Father's eyes flashed with light in unison with Alistair's wounds. When the light faded, the injuries were gone, save for some minor scars.

Sapphire retrieved Alistair's arms and armor from a nearby chest that had been left open, either carelessly or else to spite him. She handed him his equipment as Brock helped him to stand.

"Are you okay?" asked Brock.

Alistair pulled away to stand on his own. He sneered, "Would _you_ be okay?" He donned his armor with rage, jamming his daggers forcefully into their sheaths.

Though livid and fuming, Alistair stopped before leaving the chamber and glanced back at the three others. "Thank you."

Then, Alistair stormed off, with Brock, Sapphire, and the High Father in tow. He seemed to ignore the alarm bells, focusing on each elongated stride as he marched purposefully down the stairs to the ground level and into the base level's cell block.

"Um, Alistair," Sapphire informed, "_that_ way leads directly _into_ the High Church swarmin' with paladins led by the man who's bent on kidnappin' and torturin' anyone he has an excuse to."

"Why do you think I'm going this way?" he said grimly, "I've got a score to settle with the apostate paladin."

As Alistair opened the ground level door, a swarm of inquisitors revealed themselves with weapons drawn. Each menaced a short sword and an obsidian shield with the emblem for wrath embossed in gold on the center of it.

"Perfect." said Alistair almost maniacally under his breath, "These guys will make for a great warm-up." He whipped out his twin daggers and readied himself for the oncoming assault.

One of the guards charged at Alistair. He swiped at the rogue, but Alistair's nimbleness remained intact and sharper than ever, and with renewed vigor from the High Father's healing, he sliced the man's throat as he stepped past. Blood gushed from the severed neck, and Alistair strode on, seemingly oblivious and calloused to his claiming of any lives that stood in his path to the High Inquisitor.

As each soldier attempted an assault, Alistair ducked, dodged, or weaved out of the way and then sliced them open coldly. He was through sparing lives. He was through with putting up with the injustices in the world. He would make everyone who ever sided against the helpless pay for what they had done, starting with the 'almighty' Jared Lightbringer.

From the side hallway, a second throng attempted to flank the rogue on his bloody tirade. Sapphire leaped into the fray with a jumping somersault, simultaneously drawing her sword.

With the finesse and poise of a swashbuckler, Sapphire parried and dodged each swipe and slash that came her way, cutting at her foes' legs whenever possible and dropping many to one knee.

Brock followed Sapphire, unarmed. As she dropped each soldier, Brock lifted them and threw them into another, then another, using the bodies of his enemies as improvised weapons.

"_**In the name of the Holy Light, I meet out your justice!**_" the High Father's voice resounded as his eyes burned with silver-gold fire.

In response, entire groups of the soldiers erupted into holy fire. The flames tore away at their very flesh and scalded the wounds, cauterizing many of them.

Within minutes, the entirety of the armed multitude had been dispatched. The four stood amongst the piles of bodies that lined the hallways, looking on at the destruction they had caused.

"I knew many of these men..." the High Father mourned, "yet they chose their own paths and strayed. The Light will not meet out injustice against them. Therefore, though it pains me to say it, this was their just reward..."

Alistair scowled with rage and determination, "Now to go give the High Inquisitor his!"

Whipping his divided cloak behind him sharply, Alistair tore off his mask and looked down at it almost sentimentally. Then, with a sudden rage, he tore the mask in half and threw it to the ground sharply. "Enough hiding! Enough subterfuge!" he glared grimly at the door before him that led into the High Church, "This time, I'm dealing with the problem directly."


	16. Chapter 15 - Lillian

Chapter 15

Lillian

Walter led Michal out of the royal palace and through the streets of High Town to the High Church. The building stood firm and regal, as it had for centuries past. Michal looked up in awe at the building.

"It looks the same..." she whispered under her breath with a smile. It was comforting to see that the familiar building looked the same as it did in her day and filled her heart with the hope that she might actually be able to save this city in the future by finding Lilith here and now.

The two entered the building through the enormous double doors inlaid with gold. Then, they walked through the solemn halls of the hallowed building toward the High Father's office around the back of the sanctuary.

As they walked, Michal examined the tapestries and paintings that adorned the walls. Though less aged in this time, they were all the same, age-old representations that Michal had grown up seeing here. They were even in their same places throughout the building. The nostalgia of the walls offered Michal a strange comfort that she desperately needed now, giving her a sense of stability amongst the chaos of her dire situation.

Once the two came to the High Father's office, Walter knocked on the door with the huge, brass knocker-ring that hung in the center. The bang resounded through the hollow, uncarpeted halls of the church.

The door opened, and a pale-skinned young woman about the same age as Michal answered the door. Her long, straight, black hair seemed to flow seamlessly into her long, solid black dress.

"May I help you?" she questioned, focusing on Michal's unfamiliar face. Then, she looked over to Walter, "Hello, Walter." She blushed a little at the sight of the mage and averted her gaze to the floor.

"Greetings, Lillian. Is the High Father here?" Walter asked cordially.

"Yes. He's here." Lillian nodded, then looked once more at Michal, "Who is this?"

"Oh, right. I apologize for not having introduced you." said Walter, "Lillian, this is Michal. Michal, Lillian. Lillian is the personal assistant to the High Father."

There was something unstintingly familiar about Lillian, but Michal was unable to place her finger on it. She smiled, "Nice to meet you."

"The pleasure is mine." Lillian replied.

"Michal was asked by the king to help with his battle strategy." Walter explained to Lillian. Then he turned to Michal, "Lillian is a mage who has dedicated her life in service to the Church."

"That dress looks like the gowns worn by the women taken in by the Church for the rite of Sanctuary." Michal observed.

Lillian nodded, "You know of the Church well, Michal. I was rescued by the Shining Shield from a slaver's ship. To show my gratitude, I dedicated myself to the service of the Church."

"That's very noble of you."

"It was the least that I could do for my rescuers."

"Lillian, who's at the door?" asked a middle-aged man with long, blonde hair as he walked up behind the young woman into the doorway.

"It is Walter, Your Grace." Lillian answered the High Father with a bow as he appeared, "He has brought someone to help with our battle strategy at the request of the king."

"Very well." said the High Father, "Lillian, would you please take the girl with you to your quarters for a time, while I discuss some royal matters with Walter."

"Of course, Your Excellency." Lillian nodded. She turned to Michal and smiled, "Shall we be off then?"

"So, how did you come to know the king?" asked Lillian as she and Michal entered Lillian's chambers in the orphanage wing.

"I saved him from a pack of goblins. Next thing I know, he's dragging me along, telling me he wants me to come live at the castle."

Lillian chuckled, "Walter is so friendly. I remember the day I first met him, when I arrived here at the church. He was so kind in helping me find my way around town, and Freya took a liking to him right away."

"Freya?" Michal asked.

"My daughter." Lillian explained, "I gave birth shortly after I was rescued. See, when you're taken by slavers, rape is a very real danger, and-"

"You don't need to explain." said Michal apologetically, "I really didn't mean to pry."

"It's fine." Lillian's eyes dropped to the floor contemplatively. She brought her hand up to her chest and pressed it against her heart, as though looking for a lost heartbeat. "Even from the ashes of the worst of circumstances, new life and hope may yet bloom..."

"Mommy! Mommy! Look what Mother Marta helped me make!" came a child's voice from outside in the hall.

"Speaking of..." Lillian smiled, snapping out of her mournful trance. She walked across the room past Michal and opened the door to the chamber.

A five-year-old girl burst into the room, waving a piece of paper in her hand. The girl had brown hair and pink skin, much unlike her mother, but her eyes were the same deep shade of brown, like Lillian's. Lillian picked the girl up and kissed her on the cheek.

"Hello there! What did Mother Marta help you make?" Lillian asked the girl with fascination.

The girl showed her mother a crude drawing of a dark blue squiggle and a smaller squiggle done in pink. "She let me use the colored inks to make you a picture! See? It's us! You're the bigger one."

"It's beautiful!" Lillian gasped with genuine awe, then smiled down at her daughter proudly.

Michal watched with a sentimental expression. The image of the pair was endearing, yet it also sparked a bizarre twinge of familiarity which Michal was unable to identify.

As Michal watched the two, a glimmer around the girl's neck caught the cleric's eye. She knelt down and pointed, "What's that around your neck, Freya?"

The girl pulled out a gold locket. Immediately, Michal recognized it. Her eyes widened.

"It is our only family heirloom." Lillian explained, "I managed to keep it hidden from the slavers when they had me. It is very precious. My mother gave it to me when I was just a girl."

"Does it have any sort of inscription?" asked Michal.

Lillian nodded and opened the locket. It read, _"To my beloved Michal." _

"Ironic, is it not?" Lillian observed, "My mother's name was also Michal. This was given to her by my father as a sign of their engagement."

"What a wonderful piece." Michal mused, becoming lost in her own thoughts. She snapped out of it and looked at Freya, "You take good care of that, okay? It's a very special necklace."

The little girl nodded, "Mommy said that when I have my own daughter, I can give it to her, and then she can give it to her daughter, and it will be a hair bloom."

"That's _heirloom_." Lillian corrected with a chuckle, rubbing the little girl's head lovingly.

Freya nodded cutely, "Right! It's our family _heirloom_!"

"So," asked Michal, changing the subject to something more practical and less private, "Walter mentioned that you're a mage?"

Lillian nodded, "I inherited my powers from my bloodline. For years, I considered them a curse, but the High Father seems to think they're a gift. He says that the Light sent me to the kingdom for this specific time so that they might be put to use for the glory of the Light and the protection of the kingdom. The High Father has even been helping me to develop them, focusing my powers into actual spells!"

"That's exciting!" said Michal enthusiastically. "So what exactly do you do?"

Before Lillian could answer, Walter appeared in the doorway. "The High Father has requested that we go to the lower chamber, where the army is. He wants to show Michal our brilliant battle plan."

Both women nodded, and after Lillian sent Freya back to Mother Marta, Walter led the way down the corridors of the church to a stairway built into a tunnel that spiraled down to the lower level. Torches mounted on the cold, stone walls cast a dim, orange light into the eerie darkness.

"The king's army is down in the lower chamber?" asked Michal, perplexed.

"Yes. They're waiting for our arrival, along with the king." Walter informed with a nod.

"The king is _here_?" exclaimed Lillian. She began to frantically adjust her dress and brush her hair with her hand.

Walter nodded his head, "Yes. In fact, he came by specifically to see what Michal's reaction would be to the army, according to His Majesty's own words."

"Wow!" Lillian gasped, looking over to Michal, "That's quite an honor!"

"Apparently His Majesty thinks that Michal can help you with building the army, Lillian."

"_Building_ the army?" Michal questioned skeptically, "I thought we were working on a _strategy_ for the battle?"

"We are." said Lillian, "The building of the army _is_ the strategy."

A foreboding, ill feeling crept into Michal's stomach. Something about the cryptic nature of this "strategy" felt wrong.

As the group continued down the stairs into the lower chamber of the church, Michal picked up on a subtle odor that steadily grew in intensity as they pressed onward. It reeked of rot and decay, mingled unpleasantly with the acidic aroma of bile. The smells burned Michal's nose and almost caused her to vomit her recent lunch.

"What is that foul smell?" Michal retched. It was horrid and familiar, but Michal dared not voice it.

"It's the stench of impending victory." Walter smiled darkly.

The three came to the narrow hallway at the lower chamber's base level. A lone door stood closed at its end.

As Michal and the other two came to the door, the smell leaked through stronger than ever. The sick feeling in Michal's stomach was no longer only from the smell or from the anticipation, but it was now also from the realization that surfaced in her mind and grew into a steadily rising fear that Michal prayed was untrue. Never in her life had she wished more to be wrong about a gut feeling.

"Behold, Lillian's masterpiece:" Walter said theatrically as he opened the door to the awaiting army beyond, "King Liam's army!"

As the door swung open, there stood the High Father next to King Liam. Both men were waiting for the three to arrive with hands folded behind their backs.

Behind them were legions of tables packed tightly together, each with a lifeless corpse strapped to it. What little flesh remained hanging on the bones of the horrors was putrid and decayed. On the sides of the room, lining the walls were abominable, giant constructions of sewn-together flesh and bone, each composed of an eclectic collage of human bodies like some grotesque, three-dimensional mosaic or sculptures born from the mind of some mad, gruesome artist.

"No!" Michal gasped in horror, "No! Don't tell me that _this_ is the army!"

Before she even finished her plea though, Michal knew it was. That was what sickened her most of all. She scowled with determination and and shock, her mouth agape.

Michal looked over at Walter and Lillian. Walter's face beamed with pride at the genius of the army. Lillian glanced back at Michal with an awaiting expression, as though looking to see if the army had the young cleric's approval. Michal gave no indication one way or another. She simply stared at the terror of this abomination before the Light that had desecrated this holy building.

Michal's expression of shock faded into anger. Her eyes briefly flashed with white light as her holy fury peaked.

"How... how could you?" Michal stammered. She turned and glared at the two mages and shouted, "How could you?"

Then with that, she stormed away, running as fast as she could. She didn't care where. She just needed to get out of this vile, desecrated place.

Both Walter and Lillian turned their heads and watched as Michal rushed up the tunnel stairway. After a brief pause, Lillian's eyebrows furled with concern.

"I will go talk with her." she volunteered, then ran off after Michal.

Michal rushed out of the church, her eyes full of tears and her heart heavy with sorrow. Her chain armor's jingling seemed to drown out all other sound as Michal ran to the center of High Town, collapsing on the side of the fountain in High Town Square. Releasing all of her anger and hurt into her sobs, she let her hot tears pour freely.

_I understand now... I understand now... The Light chose me to face Lilith in this time... because she is my ancestor! I don't know how or when... but Lillian becomes Lilith._

"Michal?" came Lillian's voice from behind her.

"Go away!" Michal yelled angrily, "The last person I want to see right now is _you_!"

"But Michal... I-"

"No! Leave now!"

Thunder rumbled low in the overcast sky. Lillian looked up. The mournful, gray clouds mirrored the way she felt right now. "Michal... We are only trying to stop the goblins. They crave human flesh. So we are sending them an army that cannot be eaten. When the goblins bite into them, or else are bitten by them, the undead plague will spread to them. Then, the undead goblins will be thralls of the necromancer who commands the other undead. With any luck, we will be able to enslave the goblin army and then eliminate the goblin race, purging it from our world!"

"I understand you need to defeat this enemy, but there are other ways, good ways. How could you bring yourself to do _that_?" Michal demanded, turning to face Lillian, "How could you commit such unspeakable evil against the Light?"

"It isn't against the Light though!" Lillian protested.

"What are you saying? Of course it is!"

"Actually, it is not." stated the High Father, approaching behind Lillian. In his hands, he held a book bound in white leather with runes embossed in gold all over its cover.

Lillian stared at the book in confusion, "What is-"

"The Divinomichron..." Michal gasped with recognition of what the book actually was.

"Yes." the High Father responded calmly.

"What's the Divinomichron?" asked Lillian, confused.

"It's the canon of sacred spells accessible through the powers of the divine." Michal whispered her answer with extreme reverence. "In it are spells of powerful and holy healing."

"In it are spells of _necromancy_ as well." the High Father said, looking directly into Michal's eyes.

"But those spells were included only to be listed under those which are forbidden to followers of the Light." Michal protested.

"Are they?" asked the High Father, "Or are they included for only the most noble and chaste to wield?" His eyes were sympathetic and sincere.

"Is that the book you told me you had that you were using to teach me?" asked Lillian with awe.

"Yes, child. However, even with your special powers, we have been unable to animate any of our constructs for more than a few minutes." He turned to Michal, "When Walter told me of your power and described how you used it, I realized that you most likely have the potential to aid Lillian and to augment her powers to the point that we can raise the army permanently. In fact, with the way Walter described your powers, I would not be surprised in the least if you could create the army by yourself."

"What?" Michal's eyes narrowed with anger and disbelief at what she was hearing.

"See, Lillian's powers inherited from her bloodline allow her to tap into powers the likes of which even I have never seen nor fully understand. However, I believe her power is a Lightsend. On top of that, now the Light has seen fit to send us the one person in this world who can help us to fully complete this army! Do you not see? The Light _wants _us to make this army! These signs, combined with the knowledge that our spells come only from the Divinomichron, are proof of that truth! The Light is on our side! Why else would it allow for undeath to even be possible?"

Michal mulled over the High Father's words in her head, trying to decide if they were profound blasphemy or profound wisdom. Her head slowly shook back and forth as she looked up to the murky sky. Then, she looked directly into the High Father's eyes. "I need to think. I'm going back to the palace."

"I understand." said the High Father in a gentle tone with a nod, "I will be here when you are ready."

With that, Michal walked off. Once she was outside of earshot, the High Father touched Lillian's shoulder and whispered in her ear, "Go speak with her. We need her for you to fulfill your destiny. You know what is at stake." He handed Lillian the book.

Lillian nodded somberly and then walked after Michal. She clutched the book tightly against her bosom. Such a precious and sacred book must be cherished and handled with care, not only for its religious value but also for its value as the key to the king's battle strategy.


	17. Chapter 16 - Execution

Chapter 16

Execution

Michal gazed deeply into her own eyes in the reflection of the vanity mirror in her room in the palace as she sat in front of it. She felt angry and betrayed and distraught and defeated and-

"Michal?" came Lillian's gentle voice after a short rap on the door that interrupted Michal's thoughts.

"Go away!" Michal sniffed.

"Michal, we need to talk."

"No, _you _need to talk;_ I_ need to get out of here!"

"_You're_ the one who came to the palace to think."

"Not the palace! I need to get away from this _time_!"

"Michal, you're not making any sense."

Michal looked directly up into Lillian's eyes as she stood next to the vanity where Michal sat. Lillian was confused and worried. Though she had only known Michal for a brief period, she felt some inexplicable, inherent connection to this strange young woman.

After a long, drawn-out pause, Michal finally spoke, "How could you help the High Father build that army?"

"Michal, the spells we used were all in this book," Lillian revealed the white leather book, "the book that you yourself said was a divine book."

"How could the High Father, the mouthpiece of the Light, fall into such madness?"

"Michal, this army gives us a real chance against the goblins! We can save thousands of lives if we use this army!"

"But at what cost?"

"The cost of the material components necessary to cast the spells, obviously."

"But it's so much more than that!" Michal protested, "We're sacrificing the very _innocence_ of our nation in order to save it. Do we truly have so little faith in the Light? What about the fear that after we win, the Light itself might smite us for our transgression? Have we as a nation become so complacent that we refuse to see what is right in front of our faces? Are we no longer afraid of divine judgment?"

"Not everybody even believes that the Light _is_ a being at all, Michal. Some people, like Walter for example, believe that the Light is an ideal, that it represents knowledge and the pursuit of knowledge. Others like the High Father believe the Light is an amoral force of power that has been held and accessed for centuries by those who hold to lawful and good ways and have simply assumed or knowingly just added the part about it being lawful and good in itself."

"The High Father has fallen..." Michal whispered sorrowfully to herself, "And what do you think, Lillian?"

"I'm... not sure. All I do know right now is that the man who has provided a home for my daughter and for me has asked for my help in this matter, and I at least owe it to him to do what I can."

"But do you believe it's _right_?"

Lillian paused. "I believe it's a means to an end. If the end is right, it justifies the means."

Michal sighed with discouragement. So this was the firstfruits of Lilith's fall. Was she so foolishly blind that she didn't even see the slope down which she was slipping?

"Here." said Lillian, handing Michal the Divinomichron, "The High Father wanted me to bring you this. He said to read pages sixty through eighty on usurping another's mind and creating thralls. Then read chapter fourteen on life transfer rituals. That's all I needed to tell you."

"I'm not doing this! You can't make me! I don't care how many lives it saves! It's wrong!"

"Why are you so adamant about this anyway? You're risking nothing here! Dorenkeep isn't your home. You just got here. You can pick up and leave whenever you want."

"No, I can't!"

"Why not?"

"Because your future self sent me back in time to stop you from doing this!"

Lillian paused, confounded by the oddity of the statement, "What?"

Alistair, Brock, Sapphire, and the High Father made their way through the church, ambushing the inquisitors who patrolled the building as they went. Soon, all of the inquisitors stationed in the High Church were dispatched, save those in the sanctuary where Jared was still delivering his Winter's Eve sermon.

The doors of the sanctuary burst open suddenly, ringing out through the acoustic room and interrupting Jared Lightbringer's sermon. The congregation, inquisitors, and even the High Inquisitor himself all became instantly silent and looked toward the open doorway, where Alistair revealed himself at the head of the party.

"High Inquisitor Jared Lightbringer," Alistair pointed one of his drawn daggers directly at the man at the podium, "by the statutes of what is good and right, I find you guilty of high treason against the kingdom and peoples of Doren and order your immediate surrender under pain of death!"

"You have no authority to do any such thing!" Jared laughed. He turned to his inquisitors, "Officers of the High Inquisition, arrest these traitors!"

As the guards mobilized, all of the civilians exploded into panic. They stood from their seats and fled the sanctuary through the main entrance, making it almost impossible for the inquisitors to find their targets.

As the last of the citizens left the building, Sapphire burst forth from around the corner with sword drawn. Gracefully, she spun through the air and delivered a blow to one of the inquisitors, met with his own blade in a parry. Sapphire landed solidly on her feet but didn't stay there for long. With nimbleness and acrobatic prowess, she flipped and jumped between three separate inquisitors, matching all of their blows with swords and shields using only her single blade. The ribbon tied to the end of it danced fluidly through the air, tracing the halfling's positions flawlessly. Unaware of Sapphire's strategy, the guards followed her, attempting to cut her down.

Then, with lightning quick motion, Sapphire plucked the long ribbon from her sword and used it to tie the three guards' sword hands together as they all thrust toward her at once. Then, with a backflip-kick, Sapphire forced one of the soldiers into the other two, and all three toppled to the ground in a heap.

Meanwhile, Brock reached over and took one of the great axes from the several empty suits of armor that decorated the walls of the sanctuary. Taking a defensive battle stance, Brock readied himself for the oncoming throng of soldiers that charged him.

As the first of them reached the dwarf, he crouched low and caught the woman's waist with the pole portion of his axe and lifted her, flipping her onto her back on the floor behind him. Brock continued this strategy through the mob, flipping soldiers on top of one another behind him. Sapphire followed close behind, cast a hold spell on each that immobilized them, pinning them to the floor.

"_**Let the Light smite the evil!**_" shouted the High Father as holy fire burst from his hand and enveloped an area of soldiers.

Jared watched with horror and rage as his soldiers fell by the droves. _Wait a moment..._ he thought to himself, _If they released the High Father, they surely would have released Raven... so then, where-_

Before Jared could even finish his thought, he sensed a presence appear behind him and felt one dagger pressed against the back of his neck with a second pressed against his throat.

"You lose." Alistair whispered grimly.

"So this is how you choose to finish it?" said Jared, a hint of mocking sarcasm in his voice, "Rather than face me like a man, you ambush me and choose the coward's way out?"

"I am no coward!" Alistair said through gritted teeth, "The only coward here is the man who imprisons and tortures the weak and helpless, the man who takes an entire army with him to take a single prisoner and who has his grunts do all of his work for him!"

"Then face me in a fair fight, Raven. Just you against me." Jared challenged, "No tricks, no soldiers, just man against man, and the best of us walks away with his life."

"Fine." Alistair growled after a brief pause. He removed his daggers and did a backflip away from the paladin.

Jared Lightbringer grabbed his enormous battle axe with its holy symbol dangling at the end of the chain. He then tore away his cape and took an aggressive battle stance.

As the two glared at one another from opposite sides of the platform in the sanctuary, Brock, Sapphire, and the High Father finished the last of the inquisitors. As they started to rush the stage though, Alistair held out his hand, signaling for them to stop.

"No!" shouted Alistair to his companions, "This is between him and me now! No interference!"

Sapphire protested, "But-"

"_No_ interference!" Alistair reiterated solidly.

Biting her lip with frustration, Sapphire stepped back, and Brock laid a hand on her shoulder.

"The first move is yours, High Inquisitor." Alistair stated as he waited for the man to approach him.

"Very well." Jared smiled knowingly. His eyes flared with silver and gold fire as his weapons erupted in the holy fire also and his voice echoed, "_**The Light of law will burn the Darkness' children of chaos in the Seven Hells forevermore!**_"

"How is he able to access the power o' the Light still?" asked Sapphire, "I thought once a cleric or paladin turned from their faith, they were cut off from their power?"

"That is not always the case." the High Father explained, "Clerics and paladins_ do_ draw on the power of their own faith in an ideal, but if their passion turns in a direction in which they still believe in their ideal to some degree, no matter how twisted, they can still access their power, but rather than calling upon it or summoning it, they wield it like a weapon, making it more powerful but also more unstable."

With fury and zeal, Jared charged Alistair with his flaming weapon in hand. He swung with tremendous force, and Alistair jumped into the air to dodge. Foreseeing this move on the rogue's part, Jared adjusted his attack and brought his axe over and down onto Alistair's chest, smashing him to the ground and causing him to erupt into holy fire as the blade wedged into his chest, prevented slightly only by Alistair's leather armor.

Alistair lay helplessly on the indentation in the floor where he had landed, the wind knocked out of him. He felt as though the fire stripped away at his flesh and consumed it, and he was positive that he had broken several ribs. He coughed weakly, sending jolts of pain up through his side. Blood sputtered out of his mouth, and Alistair realized that he was close to death, having been struck in the most critical way possible.

"Do you see now, you fool? The Light is on _my_ side. It always has been, because my cause is just."

"Your cause," Alistair choked, "is tyranny."

"Tyranny and fear are small prices to pay to maintain law and order."

"That is why I reject your beliefs, paladin, because they are skewed. While you do what is necessary to keep everyone under your thumb, I do what is _right_, whether within the limits of law or not."

"Soon, you too shall bow before the order of the Light, or you shall be crushed by it!"

"You may crush my body... but you can never crush my spirit!"

"Then die, you apostate dog."

As Jared raised his great axe to sever Alistair's head, Alistair kicked Jared's legs out from under him. The paladin fell to his back, and Alistair jumped to his feet. Though his body was wracked with pain, Alistair refused to concede.

Alistair jumped into the air and thrust his dagger downward, utilizing the momentum of his fall. However, Jared rolled out of the way and rose to his feet, picking up his axe menacingly.

"You fool! You have no chance against me!" Jared declared, "You are already beaten. Your body cannot endure much more. If you surrender now, I will return you to your cell and spare your life." He began swinging at the rogue furiously.

As Alistair weaved and dodged blow after blow, he realized that he could not hold out much longer. Right now, the only thing that kept Jared distracted enough to make him miss his mark was Alistair's engaging him in conversation. He had to keep him talking, just long enough to find the in he needed.

"Surrender? Only so you can torture me further? I'd rather die a hundred times over before spending one more day being 'inquisited' by you. You're no better than Lilith when it comes right down to it."

"How dare you compare me to that witch! I fight for the Light!"

"You claim that your faith upholds the ideals of mercy and justice."

"So it does."

"If that's the case, then the only apostate here is you!"

"You dog! I'll make you eat those words, you blasphemous pig!"

This was it; the in that Alistair had been waiting for. Without hesitation, he made his move, dodging Jared's careless blow of rage and stepping up to him so that the two were chest-to-chest. For a split second, Jared realized his mistake, and his eyes widened with fear.

In a single split second, Alistair sliced the paladin's throat cleanly. Blood sprayed out of Jared's neck as he dropped his axe and collapsed to his knees then toppled forward onto his face.

Alistair turned his head and looked down at the dead body and muttered under his breath, "Die, apostate dog."

Brock and Sapphire stared in shock as their once-friend now lay dead on the platform of the church he'd sworn to protect and serve.

"Though this was necessary, this was no victory." the High Father said mournfully, "This day, the first Lightbringer in history has fallen dishonorably, having soiled his name and rank. The Light may be sovereign, but where there is Light, the Dark still looms in shadow. There will be time to mourn the dead later. Right now, we must address the war that is at hand."

"I don't believe what you're telling me." Lillian stated flatly in denial after Michal told her her whole story.

"But it's true!" Michal insisted fervently, unaware at the offense she had just caused.

"I would never do anything like that! I _could_ never do that!"

"Apparently, you could, because I'm still here, even after having warned you!"

"How dare you say such a thing about me!" Lillian shook her head and then glared at Michal, "I know what it is! You just want to steal Walter for yourself!"

"What? No!" Michal protested, unsure of how Walter even fit into this equation in the first place.

Realizing Michal's genuinely perplexed expression, Lillian explained, "I followed Walter into Desmer Forest to make sure he would be safe! I lost him for a time until I heard your combat with the goblins. I saw you two in the woods! I saw the way he looked at you! I was so hurt that I didn't even show myself! I just couldn't take it!"

"I'm not interested in Walter!" Michal insisted, "I told you, I'm a Sister of the High Church!"

"If the Church changes so much in the future as to allow Sisters, then how do I know that the vow of celibacy is still required? Maybe _that _has become _optional_!"

"Actually, it is, but that's beside the point!" Michal excused, trying to focus on the issue at hand.

"I knew it!"

"Listen to yourself! You're getting upset over nothing!" Michal shouted.

"Upset over _nothing_?" Lillian scoffed in disbelief, "So now being accused of being a sadistic necromancer is _nothing_?"

"I told you, I _will _stop you! I'm trying to reason with you, but I will use force if I have to!"

"You would use force on me for something I haven't even done yet, and may _never_ do for that matter?" Lillian glared with indignation.

Michal hastily searched the room for some means of defense. Her gaze fell on the table next to her bed. She lifted the fruit knife from the table and brandished it against Lillian, "I mean it."

"You're actually _threatening_ me now? And with a sodding _fruit knife_?" Lillian glared with rage at Michal, and her eyes became enveloped in shadowy flames, "If you're going to be like that, then fine! Maybe I _will_ work as hard as I can to develop my powers on my own and become the most feared necromancer the world has ever seen!"

"You don't mean that!" Michal's eyes burned with her hot tears.

"Yes! I do!" Lillian insisted, "And what's more, I'll take a new name, one that suits a witch! I think I'll call myself-"

"No!" Michal interrupted, thrusting the knife into Lillian's chest passionately without even thinking.

Lillian's face washed over with shock as she looked down at the knife in her chest. With eyes scarred by betrayal, she glared at Michal. Blood spattered from her mouth as she coughed from its filling her lungs, "You... stabbed me..."

Michal's heart stopped beating as she realized the horror of what she had just done. The world froze in time, becoming deathly cold. Then, with a sickening wake-up to reality, Michal heard Walter's voice from the doorway.

"You just murdered her!" He stared in disbelief at Michal, who stared back. Tears began to stream down his face, tears of heartbreak for the target of his affections who lay dead before him.

As Walter began to run away to call for help, Michal instinctively lifted her nearby hammer and struck the wizard hard on the head, knocking him out cold.

Panicking with her heart now racing, Michal's head darted back and forth, searching for any way out of this. Her gaze fell on the Divinomichron. "Pages sixty through eighty..." she muttered to herself.

The first thing to take care of was to ensure that Walter didn't accuse her of anything. She knew that if Walter awoke to find Lillian dead, he would go to the High Father, or worse, to the king. Michal read the pages that explained how to make a thrall. The material component necessary was the blood of the person's true love.

Hastily, Michal dipped her fingers in Lillian's blood that now gathered in a puddle on the floor. With it, she drew the transmutation circles shown in the book onto Walter's forehead and chest. Then, she muttered the incantation to herself.

Michal's lips tingled and burned as the desecrated words left her lips. The blood burst with light, and in an instant, the blood circles had fused to Walter's skin, becoming tattoos. Expressionless, Walter awoke, now devoid of all emotion or will of his own but otherwise the same as he had always been.

The next problem to solve was the problem of Lillian's body on her floor. For this, Michal took the time to read the chapters Lillian had told her dealt with life transference.

Michal's eyes fell on a spell called "Raise Dead." Surely, this would be a holy spell of tremendous power, and though the cost to raise Lillian would be great, possibly even claiming Michal's own life in the process, she knew she had to try.

With all that was in her, Michal hastily yet meticulously performed the rite. At first, the magic felt just like her own healing powers that she had used so many times before.

As she continued with the spell, she felt the flow of magic twisting and converging on the dead body. She could feel the life returning to Lillian! Michal's eyes teared with relief. With renewed vigor, she poured all of her energy and will into the chant as she continued to read from the spell book.

Then, as the rite continued, Michal felt the spell warp and change, and not for the better either. A twinge of sour-bitter chill washed over Michal's body with an unsettling tingle. Michal's silver-gold holy fire-enveloped eyes distorted to red and black flames, and as Michal felt the energy grow more and more powerful, Lillian's body rose until it stood on its own feet of its own accord. However, something was wrong. Though Lillian's body was once more animated, it was still injured. Her skin faded quickly to a pale gray, and the foul scent of undeath began to ebb from it.

Appalled with herself for what she had just done, Michal reeled backwards. She began to cry and stare at her hands in disbelief. She shrieked at the sight of them; her skin now had a gray twinge to it. "No! What have I done? What have I _done_?"

"It looks to me like you've just realized your destiny." came the High Father's voice from Michal's doorway. His grim smile sickened Michal. Had this been his plan all along?


	18. Chapter 17 - The War Begins

Chapter 17

The War Begins

The thunder crashed and boomed in the black sky as the torrential sheets of rain soaked the battlefield, turning it to a quagmire swamp that surrounded the city of Dorenkeep. The wind howled and increased the force with which the bullets of rain assaulted the ground. Lightning burst forth with purples and blues as it cracked the sky with its fearsome flashes.

Surrounding Dorenkeep's wall were its soldiers, its only hope for defense against the city's foes. The soldiers stood ready, though each was secretly fearful of what was to come in the impending battle.

On the opposite side of the mud swamp that now surrounded the city, legions of goblins stood armed and armored and ready for the war they had brought to the world of men. They were hungry, and only the satisfaction of man-flesh would appease their voracious appetites. Chattering amongst themselves in their primitive language, they cursed at their prey and quibbled about who was hungriest. The steady, rising buzz of their speech reverberated across the field and caused the armor on the human soldiers' bodies to vibrate ominously.

From the balcony that extended from the highest room of the tallest tower of Dorenkeep's royal palace, the king looked on at the battlefield, gripping the railing with anticipation. Behind him, the High Father stood with Michal in front of him, his hand firmly grasping her shoulder so that she did not move.

The king gestured to the battlefield, accentuating that the goblin horde outnumbered his own men four or five to one easily. "I have been down there." He said somberly, "I have seen the fear in their eyes... and why should they not be afraid? They face an army that knows neither fear of death nor pain and which seeks to consume those lucky enough to not be taken captive."

He turned to Michal, "I have an entire army that could win this war for us, but it lies dormant in the lower chamber of the High Church." The king strode regally up to Michal and bent over so that his face was directly in front of hers. "The High Father has told me that you are able to raise the dead. Is this true?"

Michal's expression of worry faded to frustration. She pressed her lips closed tight, determined not to answer as she scowled up at the High Father and then back at King Liam.

"Answer His Majesty." the High Father ordered, squeezing Michal's shoulder tighter. "Tell him what you have done, or else I will ensure that you are _tried_ and hanged for what you have done. Do you understand me, child?"

Michal's expression remained steadfast, and her lips remained sealed. With perseverance, she told herself, _I won't ever help them with their evil scheme! No matter what, I just can't do it! I deserve the punishment I receive for what I've done... I will get my just reward, as is the way under the Light, but I won't sin any further than what I already have._

Wintersday found the kingdom of Doren assaulted by a raging blizzard. The harsh winter weather blew the decorations that adorned the streets of Dorenkeep into the white oblivion. Families huddled inside their homes, trying futilely to ignore the roaring wind and piercing chill. The hope of Wintersday seemed all but lost.

Even in the royal palace, with its fortified windows of glass and its sturdy, stone walls, a foreboding gloom mingled with anxious anticipation in the hearts of all in the castle. The servants' hearts weighed heavy with the thoughts of what might be going on in the king's war strategy room, where King Rorek met with the High Father; the newly-absolved lost lord of Dorenkeep, Alistair Cromwell; Brock the Wanderer; and Sapphire, the Minstrel of Farshire. With the High Father in power of the government, he had restored the position of rightful leadership to King Rorek and now met to discuss a plan of attack to rescue the newest Lightbringer, Sister Michal.

A map of the immediate area, that included markers for Dorenkeep and the place where Brock indicated Lilith's castle was, now lay on the enormous table in the center of the otherwise relatively empty room. King Rorek slouched over the map, examining it carefully.

"So, Lilith's castle is here, and we are here." stated the king, pointing at the markers on the map, "With this blizzard, we've no means to march and launch an assault until the weather clears at the earliest."

"So the blizzard seems to be workin' in our favor right about now." Sapphire observed, "Seein' as how it buys us the time we need to form a plan and all, I mean."

Brock nodded, "I think the best means of ensuring that Michal is safe is for you to launch a direct assault on the keep, Your Majesty." He placed a marker for the troops near the keep. Then, he lifted a marker for a subterfuge party, "Meanwhile, Sapphire, Alistair, and I can sneak into the keep around the horde and find Michal. Then, we can fight our way out to our path in the woods and backtrack to the other side of enemy lines. From there, Michal can lead the clerics in their assault on the undead, while you and your men follow them. Once a path has been cleared, you and the Royal Guard can storm the castle and take out Lilith."

King Rorek marveled at the strategy, "You surprise me, master dwarf! I never would have expected a wanderer to devise such a detailed and brilliant strategy!"

"My father was a general in the Dwarenhold Militia. His primary responsibility was combat tactics coordination, which he taught me as a boy." Brock explained.

"With the brilliance of a barbarian strategist on my side, I feel the scales may now be tipped in our favor." King Rorek complimented.

"So you think the 'scales tip in your favor,' do you, King Rorek?" Lilith smirked as she spied on the meeting from her chambers through her scrying orb, "Little do you realize that the blizzard will be unable to afford you the time you need. For none shall stand against the almighty witch, Lilith. So long as your people's hearts remain steadfast, my job is not yet complete! For I shall not rest until the spirit of every man, woman, and child is utterly crushed." Her gravelly laugh resounded through the hollow castle.

"My lady?" came the voice of the wizard, "All preparations have been made. We are now prepared to enact your plan. The ritual components are in place."

Lilith smiled an evil, contented grin, "Excellent, my thrall. Then begin the ritual immediately. We have little time to waste."

The wizard bowed expressionlessly and then turned to fulfill his commands, "We shall commence with it post haste."

Lilith's grin grew wider as she showed her teeth, "Thank you, Walter. You have been most helpful throughout the years."

Walter nodded a short bow, "Of course, my lady." With that, he left to perform the ritual in connection with Lilith's grand plan.

Sapphire's room in the royal palace was opulent and luxurious, with an enormous bed covered with four layers of down quilts and comforters, fluffy pillows that were half the size of her entire body, purple bed curtains that hung down from the ceiling twenty feet up, and the vanity that encased an entire corner of the room with his ten-foot tall mirror in the center of the huge drawers.

At first, she had loved it. She had jumped on the springy, cushy bed; she had enveloped herself in a cocoon of glorious blankets; and she had even taken a swim in the bath tub that was gargantuan by human standards, but for a halfling, it was a full-fledged swimming pool of hot, frothy bliss.

However, after having reveled in her room for all of Wintersday, Sapphire now felt herself becoming homesick for Farshire. She missed the quaint simplicity of her own cottage built into the hillside; she missed her nosy extended relatives who lived all around her; she missed everything being just her size, rather than being enough for five or six of her selves; and probably most oddly of all, she missed not being on an adventure. She missed a lot of things.

Sapphire's reflections and introspection were interrupted by a rapping on her chamber door. "Come in." she called, wondering who could still be awake at this hour on Wintersday night.

Brock poked his head through the partially-open door. "I was just stretching my legs, and I noticed your light was still on from under your door."

"Yeah." Sapphire nodded, "I can't sleep."

"The blizzard's stopped though."

"I know, but that means the army is goin' to march on Lilith's castle tomorrow." Sapphire pulled her knees against her chest and hugged them as Brock took a seat beside her on the bed.

"There's something else bothering you though..." Brock observed.

Sapphire sighed as she let go of her legs to let them down, "I guess I'm just feelin' a trifle homesick." She chuckled to herself at her own statement, "Imagine... _me_ bein' homesick."

"Not normal for you, I take it?"

"Not in the least." Sapphire looked up at the intricate carvings in the ceiling as she reminisced about a time long past, "My family has lived in Farshire for generations. We're wealthy and have a nice home with all o' the modern comforts; indoor plumbin', gas lines, you name it. My father was an avid storyteller, and I grew to love the epic stories of heroes and villains and battles and everythin' else."

Brock smiled quaintly, listening to his companion's tale.

"I told my dad that I would grow up to become a bard. I told him I would experience the stories for myself, and then I would join the Bard's Guild and write the greatest epic of all time, but now that the battles and adventures are real... I find myself missin' home."

"What's it like?" asked Brock, "I grew up amongst the nomadic barbarians of the north. So I've never really had a single place I called home. What's yours like?"

Sapphire smiled warmly, "It's a quiet place, with rollin' green hills and golden pastures of wheat. It's nestled in a valley that you'd never find except if you already knew where it was, and a crystal clear river runs through the center of the tiny village, inhabited by only by halflings, like me. Even the richest of us live modestly, and every night after a hard day's work, everyone in the town gets together at the local tavern, where we sing songs and drink ale and eat the heartiest second supper you've ever eaten in your whole life. Everyone knows everyone else and _about_ everyone else, and your nearest and most distant relatives are never more than a room apart. It's peaceful and plain, and that's just the way we... _they_ like it..." She paused, and an air of sadness loomed over her visage, "I was too short-sight, or some would say to broad-minded, to see the simple pleasures o' what sat before me."

"Your home sounds like a really nice place."

"It is."

Brock leaned back on his hands, "You know, when all this is over, I'd like to see your home."

"Maybe you will." Sapphire smiled, content to have spoken her piece.

"Do you ever regret the life you've chosen to live?"

"Almost, sometimes, but then I realize that if I'd stayed, I would have so many more regrets. My life is on the road, but my heart... well, once in a great while, my heart finds its way back home... and I wish I could follow it."

"For what it's worth," Brock whispered comfortingly, "I'm thankful that you decided to travel... so that I was able to meet you."

"I was goin' to say the same thing." Sapphire said, leaning in.

As the two sat on the bed, they both leaned closer and closer, until their lips met in this single kiss, subtle and passionate, just like the two of them. However, even beyond the kiss, there was something deeper that words could not express, something that conveyed itself only in this single instant.

As they drew back out of it, their eyes met, locking onto one another with relief and joy and a swell of other thoughts and feelings that were suddenly interrupted by a loud, repeated clanging from outside the palace. Though the night air, the alarm bells of the High Church clamored in panic.

Brock rose from the bed and approached the glass window to peer out, "What the-"

Then, he saw it: just outside the city and still enveloped in a thin film of wispy, black smoke stood Lilith's castle in all its ebony horror.

"What is it?" asked Sapphire anxiously. She rose from the bed and approached Brock from behind, laying her hand on his shoulder.

"It's the war front." Brock responded, "It seems Lilith has brought the war to us."

"Don't you see that _they've_ brought this war to _us_?" demanded King Liam, hammering his fist on the nearby table as he glared at Michal, "We had a means of winning this war, and in one single act of treason, you killed her! Do you realize that you have just sentenced my men, and all of this city, to die?"

"I _saved_ the city from the judgment of the Light!" Michal retorted, "I admit that murder was not the right answer... and I will answer for _that_ sin on judgment day, but I would think that you, of all people would understand... seeing as it was a '_means to an end_'!"

The High Father slapped Michal across the face with the back of his hand, "How dare you address the king in such a manner and try to cover up for your evil!"

"That's _enough_!" King Liam snapped at the High Father, "This entire plan was of your own device, and you assured me that it was foolproof, that we needed no backup!" He turned to Michal and looked her directly in the eyes with heartfelt sympathy and genuine humility as he pleaded with the priestess, hoping to touch the strings of her heart with his request, "Listen to me, and please try to see this from the perspective of the ruler of this kingdom... of these _people_!"

Michal paused, her attention successfully grasped.

"I do not seek to aid the rise of a necromancer or to sin against the Light... I only wish to preserve the lives of the people, whom it is my sworn duty to lead and protect in times like this. I do not ask for money or recognition or anything else as a king, except this: to have a kingdom over which to rule. In order to maintain that which it is my duty to protect, I need an army; I need _this_ army. I understand the consequences of such a request, and I am willing to accept them. If it would help my people for me to die, then so be it. If it would help my people for me to create an army of the walking dead... then so be it. I will do whatever it takes to save my people!"

"And now you understand our reasons behind what we do, Michal." the High Father explained, "We are not master plotters. We do not seek to destroy the future. We only seek to do good, and if the ability to do good is dependent on the occasionally morally questionable action to get there, then so be it."

"No, no, no!" Michal shouted in protest, pulling away from the High Father's grip, "Good intentions are _never_ enough to accomplish good. The Holy Book teaches us that goodness and law must _both_ be sought after and maintained at all costs." Michal quoted a passage from the Book, "'That which is tainted by evil is itself altogether evil'!" She looked into the eyes of the High Father accusingly, "You're the religious leader of this time! You're the mouthpiece of the Light! You should know this better than anyone!"

"You poor, naïve girl..." the High Father said with sympathetic patronization, "You are so blinded by your optimistic altruism that you are unable to see that which is reality."

"When did the High Father become so complacent and sacrilegious?" Michal shouted in anger.

"When the people turned faith into religion and the law of the Light into a measure of hypocrisy!" the High Father yelled in frustration, tears streaming down his face. "Do you think that I have not spent my many long years on this world trying to show people what is good and right? I have expended my entire lifespan doing just that, and accomplishing nothing! My life has been a waste. So if I, as the High Father, condone something that is unprecedented for the sake of accomplishing some sort of lasting good in the world before I die, like the saving of lives or entire kingdoms, then _so be it_!"

It was at this last statement that Michal finally realized the true purpose behind the High Father's actions. Even he, the supposedly most pious of all people on Aldaronthe... even he had fallen into the vices of pragmatism... There was no more hope for the world, unless Michal were to bring it.

With all seriousness and gravity at her statement, Michal stared at the two desperate men before her and sighed, "If it is what must be done for the greatest good, then I will create for you this army."

Alistair, Brock, and Sapphire made their way through the secret passage that ran from the throne room in the royal palace and out into Desmer Forest. They came out of the trap door on the forest side into a small cave on the edge of the woods.

The three trekked through the snow-laden battlefield outside Dorenkeep. The snow crunched and crackled under their feet as they sneaked around the hordes of undead that poured from the castle's front door in droves.

On the horizon, dawn just began to break in the east over the peaks of the Icecrag Mountains. The red light cast an eerie glow over the sparkling snow and into the icicles that hung from the trees and refracted the beams against the dark trees, a foreboding omen. The beams of red mingled with orange were broken by the shadows of three people; a dwarf, a halfling, and a man.

"We all know the plan, right?" Brock clarified as they tromped through the cold woods.

"We sneak up to the keep and find a window." Sapphire cited.

"Then, I'll use my crossbow to launch a grappling hook and rope up to so we can climb inside stealthily." Alistair continued.

"Then, we sneak our way through the castle to the dungeon and free Michal." Sapphire went on, "After that, we get her out the way we came and take her safely back to the palace, where the High Father will heal her of her injuries."

"But before that," Alistair interject, "we have to fight our way to the keep in the first place."

Both Sapphire and Brock looked up at Alistair with confusion. Alistair pointed ahead of them, where twelve wraiths materialized in their path.

Sapphire drew her sword; Brock menaced his great axe; and Alistair pulled out his crossbow in response to the threat. The three were ready. Their companion's life was on the line. All of their preparation and training for the past two months had been for this moment.

Brock's eyes grew wide, and his pupils shrank as he unleashed a mighty roar, baring his teeth as a bit of foamed saliva trickled from the corner of his mouth. He charged the ethereal monsters head-on. With a single blow from his axe, a wraith disintegrated into the air. This new weapon of his had been blessed by the High Father, making it especially effective against the creatures. He leaped to his next target, landing with his axe embedding into the abomination's face.

From the back, Alistair fired his crossbow with deadly precision. Hit. Reload. Hit. Reload. One by one, wraiths disappeared with hollow screeches of pain, as each blow from the holy bolts from the blessed crossbow smoked in their incorporeal bodies.

As Sapphire slashed and dodged her way through the mob of wraiths, she realized something that sparked a twinge of fear in her mind. Why were there so many of these? Surely, they should have dispatched them all by now, right? She focused her fighting style on parrying, switching to a defensive stance as she took a brief moment to examine her surroundings.

For each wraith that the party felled, two more appeared to replace it. Very quickly, they were becoming more and more outnumbered, and they were already outclassed, with their newly enchanted weapons only barely leveling the playing field. With this new development, there was no way they would be able to win, not like this.

"They're spawning faster and faster!" Sapphire shouted to her companions. She turned to see how they were doing.

Fear gripped her heart and paralyzed her for a split second as she saw that Alistair had already been taken down by one wraith who had ambushed him from behind, and Brock was currently fending off five, two of which had inserted their claws into his body.

_No!_ Sapphire's gasped in her mind, careful not to alert the wraiths of her fear and vulnerability, but sadly, they were ready, and this pause was the opening the wraiths had needed.

With one swipe, Sapphire felt a sting of sharp pain in her back, followed by a burning sensation that pulsed through her body and faded into numbness. She struggled to remain conscious, but the toxin was too much, and she eventually succumbed to the poison's weakening effect, spiraling into dizzying darkness.

When Sapphire awoke, she immediately realized that nearly all feeling was gone from her arms and hands. She was standing on a stone floor in a dimly lit room. Her wrists were locked in shackles connected to chains that rose high above her, wound into a winch that hung from the high, shadowed ceiling overhead. On either side of her, Brock and Alistair stood similarly chained. Both were already awake and struggling against their bonds.

"Where are we?" Sapphire asked, trying to see anything around. In the obscured blackness, Sapphire could make out rough outlines of strange machines. The subtle after-scent of blood permeated the room, and cages hung from the high ceiling further into the dark room.

"We're in Lilith's torture chamber." Brock growled, yanking futilely at his restraints to no avail.

"I can try to knock the locks again." Sapphire offered, closing her eyes and beginning to focus on the rhythm of the flow of magic in the room as she had the last time they had been captured by the necromancer.

"Don't bother." Alistair commented grimly, nodding with his head to the shackles.

She opened her eyes and looked up, noticing a small rune engraved into each of the shackles at the locks.

"Those prevent the locks from being unlocked with spells." Alistair informed.

On top of that, Sapphire noticed that Brock's shackles and chains were thicker than the others'. The witch had thought of everything. It was hopeless. They were doomed.


	19. Chapter 18 - Revelations

Chapter 18

Revelations

"Well, well..." Lilith feigned surprise as she strode into the torture chamber and approached her captives as they hung against the wall by their wrists. "To say that I am surprised at how long it took you to come back would be an understatement."

"I thought you knew the future." Brock grunted, "Where's your all-powerful sight of time gone?"

Lilith walked up to the dwarf and grasped his jaw firmly, digging her claws into his cheeks slightly. "My dear boy, my understanding of time is expansive, not because I am all-powerful but because I am _old_. I understand the past well, and my memory is very good, but to see the future is a rare and special gift, one that I have _never_ possessed."

"Then how did you know all of the things you have up to this point?" demanded Alistair.

Lilith turned to him and laughed, "Is it not obvious? I knew that Captain Lighbringer would betray you, because I _remembered_ when it happened." She turned to Alistair, "By the way, you accomplished my plan flawlessly. Well done! I especially liked the poetic line you delivered at the end, right after the moment that you killed our beloved paladin!"

"It had nothing to do with any plan of _yours_, witch!" Alistair roared, yanking against his chains. He sneered angrily, glaring daggers into the necromancer's dark eyes.

"Did it not?" Lilith mocked, "Yet, I told you that I still had plans for you, for which I needed you unspoiled. That was why I spared you the torture I inflicted upon the others, lest you have forgotten." She smiled grimly at Sapphire and Brock.

"I haven't forgotten," said Alistair, "but my actions were my own!"

"Are you so sure?" Lilith smiled knowingly. "How do you know that I have not orchestrated your lives up to this point so that your paths would entwine and I could accomplish my own purposes? How do you know that you and I have never interacted before our fateful encounter in Desmer Forest? How do you know that I do not knoweach of you far more personally than you ever imagined?"

"You don't even _know_ our pasts!" Sapphire accused.

"Do I not?" the witch cocked her head to one side, jesting sincere shock, "I know your pasts as much as you revealed to me, so many years ago. However, I do concede that I am a touch surprised that _you_ stayed and have seen things through. I thought that surely, once Michal had been sent back in time, you two would have gone back to your homelands."

"Sent back in time?" Alistair exclaimed, "You lie, witch! No such magic even exists in this world or any other!"

Lilith gasped in false surprise, "My! I had no idea that a rogue would know more of magic than a _mage_, like myself. You truly must be wise and knowledgeable!"

Lilith caught a glimpse of Sapphire and Brock exchanging glances and exclaimed, "What's this? My! You two _are_ full of surprises!" She approached Brock and Sapphire, who were chained next to one another and gripped each of their faces in a clawed hand. Her eyes narrowed as she gazed deeply into theirs and smiled, "Never in all my years would I have guess that _romance_ might actually bloom between the two of you! Then again, today has been a day full of surprises, and I'm certain that your own surprises have not yet even begun."

"Quit toying with us, witch!" yelled Alistair, his chains' jingling echoing through the torture chamber.

Lilith turned to Alistair and smiled a proud, toothy grin as she looked up at him, "Very well. Since you seem to be thicker than I had estimated, I shall be straightforward with you. It was I who orchestrated the attempted assassination on the king's life, purposing you to learn of it so that we might frame you for it and drive you to become the Raven all those years ago. Therefore, Jared had grounds to arrest you. Driven by grief, he tortured you and pushed you to your physical limits, driving you to then take his life in the most deliciously poetic way conceivable and dealing out sweet justice to the man who betrayed his very creed in the name of itself!"

"If all of this was about killing the captain," Brock stipulated, "then why are you still doing all of this?"

"You think this is all about killing Jared Lightbringer?" Lilith scoffed, "Once again, you are sorely mistaken! I remember when the paladin broke my heart and betrayed me and the ways that we _both_ followed, breaking the vow he took to uphold the tenets of goodness and law. He needed to pay for that, and I made him, by torturing him for days on end and orchestrating his demise... but he was never my true focus..."

"You're speaking in riddles!" Alistair snarled.

"Then allow me to clarify. _Who_ is the missing piece? Who is the one around whom all of these events have converged? Who is it _you came here to save_?"

All three companions' eyes grew wide at the realization.

"Michal..." Alistair gasped quietly.

"Yes... precious Sister Michal... I sent her back in time utilizing a blood ritual so that she could have time to grow up. When she first came here, she was so naïve and altruistic. She needed to grow up."

"Grow up?" asked Sapphire.

"Yes." Lilith turned around sharply to face the halfling, "She was foolish! She truly believed that goodness and law could coexist! She truly believed that idealism and truth-ha!" Her tone became mocking, "as if _truth_ and goodness were ever the foundations for law! She believed that together, the ideals of her faith could be achieved by living according to those two key tenets... when in _all truth_, it is _I_ who have done more for the Light than she ever could. It is I who have done more for the Light than anyone ever _has_!"

"What do you mean?" demanded Brock as he struggled against his restraints.

"I brought terror and fear into the hearts of the complacent." Lilith shouted piously, "I _forced_ the hypocrites to turn to their faith in sincerity! I caused the faithless masses to seek refuge and answers from the High Church, because they could find none for themselves!"

"But then..." Lilith continued, "then, that short-sighted paladin, Captain Lightbringer," she spat in disgust, "came along and drove the people away from the very faith I had worked so hard to drive them toward, with his selfish pet project of an organization, the Inquisition!" Lilith sneered, then caught herself ranting and returned to her placid composure, "So, as with all things that have become soiled with use, he had to be thrown out. Thus, the plan returns full-circle."

"Why would you _ever_ drive anyone to the Light or the Church?" Alistair demanded, "You're Lilith, the most feared necromancer in the world!"

Lilith's eyes narrowed, "I was not always a necromancer... and my name was not always Lilith..."

Brock spoke up, voicing the thoughts of the others, "Then who _are_ you?"

A wicked smile spread broadly over Lilith's mouth as she prepared herself to reveal her true name.

The storm raged with howling wind and roaring thunder outside Michal's bedchamber through the glass window that overlooked the city. She gazed out the window at the battlefield beyond the city, where men and women were being slain in droves, being carried away by the army of goblins.

She looked down at her skin. It had acquired a progressively intensifying gray tinge. She looked into her own reflection's eyes with sorrow. Her brilliant, brown eyes had faded to a dark brown, almost black. Her blonde hair had dinged to a paler, sickly color.

Her body was changed, forever scarred from her sin she had committed in animating the king's undead army. Though the king had lied to his people, denying all claims and rumors of the Church's sponsoring the creation of an undead army, Michal knew otherwise, and it sickened her.

She was through with the politics and pageantry of the royal court. She was sickened by the corruption of the church and its leaders, but more than anything else, she was sickened by who she had become.

When Michal had first been initiated into the Sisterhood of the Light, she swore to uphold the tenets of goodness and law, yet now, she was the very epitome of the hypocritical antithesis of what a Sister should be. She had broken the taboos of magic and created undead... willfully even. She had committed the murder of an innocent girl. She had even lied and enslaved one of her only friends in this time by willfully carving runes into his flesh against his will to subjugate him... after murdering the other... and she had done all these things with the blessings of the Church and the kingdom...

The High Father was right. Goodness and law were dead in Doren. Nobody truly hoped in them any longer, because they _were_ opposites. The two never truly could coexist. One would always prevail, and when dealing with politics, law would always prevail, and goodness would always fade.

_The only way the two could ever be truly unified harmoniously,_ Michal told herself as the wind blew her now stringy hair backward, _is if the kingdom, where law reigns supreme, and faith, where goodness trumps all, had a common enemy... If only they had a single threat that loomed over them both, sure to destroy them unless the kingdom as a whole turned in genuine faith toward the Light..._

Then, it hit her, _I have chosen my path now... I'm already one of the damned... but that does not mean that my service of the Light must end... It just has to change... For, I will be the one to bring true fear and terror to the hearts of men and drive them into the saving Light! I now understand my purpose. I now understand who I am. I now understand that the events of the future must be executed by me in order to show the people the true end of the path of sin to cause them to run from it in utter terror, and all of it shall commence once the king summons me to unleash his army onto the goblins. Once the immediate threat is deposed, I shall raise the corpses on the field of battle and turn them against the kingdom! I shall begin my reign of terror here, where my rebirth first occurred, and all shall bow before me in delicious irony, unless they turn to the very thing which they see as obsolete or figmentary._

Michal's thoughts were interrupted by a knock at her door.

A servant poked his head in, "The king has requested an audience with you, Sister Michal."

"Please," said Michal, "That is no longer my name."

The servant cocked an eyebrow, confused, "It's not?"

"No." Michal's eyes narrowed, and an insidious smile spread across her face as she realized her true path that now lay before her, "My name is Lilith."


	20. Chapter 19 - Plans & Plots

Chapter 19

Plans & Plots

The throne room of the royal palace of Dorenkeep was dark, save for the solitary ray of moonlight that shone through a high window, casting a spotlight effect on the throne itself. Dust and sorrow wafted on the air as the king stood in full plate armor, facing his throne with head hung low.

"You asked to see me?" queried Lilith as she entered the chamber, her black and maroon dress trailing behind her. Her voice echoed in the tense stillness, "Are you unsure of your own battle strategy, my king?"

The king inhaled deeply, an expression of anger fading onto his face. "They tell me _you_ are the one who carved the runic tattoos into Walter."

Lilith stood silently in the dark. Neither her demeanor nor her breathing betrayed a hint of emotion.

"Tell me it is not true! Tell me I have been lied to!" the king shouted sharply.

Lilith replied calmly, "Would you rather be _told_ you have been deceived, or would you choose instead to be deceived now?"

"Then it is true..."

Lilith nodded, "Yes. It is true."

"I have heard that he is now your mindless thrall, that there is no help for him." the king burst out, his voice cracking with sorrow and his eyes streaming tears of grief.

"If you mean that the spell cannot be undone, you have been told correctly." Lilith informed, calm and composed.

"He was my nephew." King Liam hammered his fist in anger on the armrest of the throne as he collapsed into it, defeated.

Taken aback a little by the revelation, Lilith paused. Then, as if attempting to comfort the king, she said, "He is _still_ your nephew."

The king looked up to face Lilith, attempting in vain to suppress the tears in his eyes. In an attempt to change the subject, he began, "The servant said you now call yourself Lilith."

"He was correct."

"Why would you change your name?"

"Why does anyone change their name?" questioned the necromancer, "I have undergone a transformation, a transformation, mind you, that you yourself enacted. You have changed me from a cleric to a necromancer, from a servant of the Light to a thrall of the Darkness. I found the name change appropriate, as I now have come to find your nephew's new office in life equally appropriate.

"Appropriate?" King Liam roared, standing from his throne, "My nephew is now a mindless husk of his former self! You call that appropriate?"

"I would go as far in my contradiction as respect would allow, my king." Lilith corrected, "You see, he is no more mindless than I; he merely cannot make any decision which contradicts my own commands for him. I find it appropriate in that just as I made him a husk of his former self, so did you and the High Father to me."

The king's anger faded to sorrow. "Why would you do this? I opened my castle to you as your home. I gave you a life of luxury and comfort."

"And I gave you an army," Lilith retorted coolly, "which is precisely what you asked for. Walter stood in the way of that army by threatening my freedom. So, I was forced to take the necessary measures to ensure that he was indisposed. If you had preferred, I could have killed him."

"How can you say such a thing so coldly?"

Lilith struggled to restrain the tears that tried to come from her eyes at the very words that came from her own mouth, "Because, my king, it is my role in this life to be as I have become. Nothing can change it. My fate was foreordained in the tablets of time, and I intend to fulfill my purpose. If that means I must be the villain of history whom all others fear, then so be it. I will do what must be done that others cannot bring themselves to do..." She glared directly into the king's eyes and added, "much as you would, yourself, my king. For it was you who made the judgment to use necromancy to win this war. It was you who coerced me into building it for you. It was _you_ who said you were willing to do _anything_ to protect this kingdom of yours."

"Then I no longer want my army!" King Liam shouted tearfully.

A tense silence hung in the air until it was broken by a startled and appalled Lilith.

"What?" Lilith questioned in astonishment.

"You heard me! I refuse the help of your army, necromancer!"

Lilith scoffed in disbelief, "You _refuse_ the help of the army you _requested_, the one you _convinced_- no!-_forced _me to create for you?"

"Yes."

Lilith's heart burned with rage and agony, "I gave up _everything_ I believed in for you and your army, to save _your_ kingdom! I broke every moral code I held dear to save lives at _your request_! It was for you and your kingdom that I sacrificed my very faith and virtue!"

"Well, I refuse to allow this to go any further! I will send my own men into battle and trust its outcome to the Light."

"The Light?" Lilith sneered, "The _Light_? You dare to be so fickle as to decimate my very existence and future, only to change your mind on a whim and turn to the very source to which I first sought for you to go?" Tears ran from her eyes.

Then, she had an epiphany. Lilith began to laugh in a low, subtle tone that steadily rose in volume until it reached fullness and said, "Fate truly is a cruel, ironic master. It seems I was right. The only way for me to be able to turn people to the Light is by driving them there with their own fear!" She turned to the king, "I suppose I owe you my thanks. As a token along that line, I swear to you that I will wait until you are dead and gone before I strike. For I shall strike at your kingdom's core. Whether by fate or by revenge, I shall threaten the very annihilation of your people and your precious city, using the very army I have prepared for your use today, and in so doing, I shall accomplish the most delicious and malicious plan the world has ever seen!" She lowered her tone and straightened herself, then added cordially, "Good day, my king."

Then with the poise of a queen, Lilith strode out of the presence of the king to venture into Desmer Forest, where she would rebuild her castle from its current state of ruin and then plot out the most elaborate scheme in all of time, as was her destiny.

"No!" Alistair gasped as Lilith revealed her true identity to her three captives.

"Michal would never do something like that!" Brock shouted in a rage.

"You're lyin' to us!" Sapphire accused.

"Think what you will, but the truth cannot be altered. I am, in fact, Michal, former Sister of the High Church. Though I have broken my vows I took, I have accomplished the greater good; a means to an end. With Jared Lightbringer dead and the threat of the undead contagion looming, those who have turned to the Light are many. They have repented of the complacency that has plagued this kingdom for decades and have sought shelter from me and my hordes. I have no further need to siege the city. For my task has been completed." She turned to Alistair, "Now, it comes time for you to accomplish yours."

"What do you mean?" Alistair growled.

Lilith's eyes glassed over, and a twinge of sorrow hung in her voice, "I mean that I have no more purpose to fulfill, no more motivation to continue. I am an old woman who has reached the end of her life." She reached up and unlocked the manacles on Alistair's wrists, to his shock. "As you might recall, I told you that I had a purpose for you still." She drew a curved dagger and placed it gently in the shocked man's hands, "This is it. I want you to kill me."

Both Sapphire and Brock stared, dumfounded at Lilith's request.

"What?" Alistair asked, mouth agape.

"My boy, I am an old woman who has lived an evil, wretched existence. I am weary of hating myself. For I have hated myself since I first committed the murder of that girl I thought to be destined to become the woman _I_ am today." Lilith's eyes now teared freely.

"You were right, by the way; goodness and law can never coexist. It was that realization that has removed all hope from my heart and filled my soul with darkness. Though I have tried many, many times to take my own life, I have been unable to bring myself to do it. So please... do an old woman one last favor..."

Alistair gazed down at the blade in his hands. This was the very reason he had come here in the first place; to end Lilith's life.

Now, the goal was at his fingertips, lying here in his hands. So why was it so hard to do?

Impatient with Alistair, Lilith summoned an orb of black-red fire in her hand and held it toward Sapphire and Brock, who were still chained to the wall. "If you do not kill me, they will die. You can save them by ending my life, or you can kill me in your rage after they are dead. The choice is yours."

As the fire grew larger and larger in the woman's hand, Alistair muttered to himself, "This was her plan all along... She wanted to die because she hated herself so much... Michal is still in there... She is still there."

As the fire grew to its climax before it released, Lilith shouted at Alistair, "This is your last chance, rogue! Kill me, or they die! You know I will do it!"

"I... I..." Alistair stammered. He just couldn't bring himself to kill the woman now, knowing who she was. Pity welled within him for Michal. She didn't deserve this. She didn't deserve any of it.

As Alistair was lost in his own thoughts, the flame spell in Lilith's hand released, incinerating the two prisoners.

As the flames enveloped their flesh, an eerie, piercing scream from the necrotic energy mingled in the air with their own screams of agony. As the layers of their flesh stripped away until there was nothing left but their skeletons, Alistair watched with horror.

Rage washed over him like a tidal wave. His pupils shrank, and his eyes widened as he swiped up the dagger and lunged toward Michal, thrusting the dagger into her heart.

As the woman's chest rose and fell heavily with death spiraling in fast, she dropped to her knees and looked up into Alistair's eyes. With all sincerity, she choked out, "Thank you... I'm so sor..." Her voice trailed off as she slumped over and a trickle of blood escaped her mouth.

The moment Lilith died, the wizard, Walter, also slumped over in death. On the battlefield outside, all of the corpses erupted in black and red flames and disintegrated into piles of cold ash, embering with black-red fire.

Inside the castle, Alistair knelt on the floor alone. He mourned the loss of his friends, Brock and Sapphire, who had risked everything to rescue him; He mourned Jared, who had been driven by grief and anger and sheer desperation to enslave the city; but most of all, he mourned Michal, the priestess who believed so firmly in the law and order of the world and of time that she lost sight of her own convictions for good.

In his sorrow, a song came to Alistair's mind. Every bard in history since its writing in ancient times knew it. It had been sung to every child of every generation at some point for centuries.

In the quiet stillness of the castle, above the howl of the wind as it picked up in the icy cold, Alistair's voice reverberated as he sang,

"_In the dark_

_Of the night,_

_We will trek_

_The path of light,_

_Though storm clouds may shadow our way,_

_And though the night_

_Feeds our fears_

_And the darkness_

_Brings us tears,_

_We never, no never, will stray..._

_We never, no never, will stray..."_


	21. Chapter 20 - Tenets of Goodness & Law

Chapter 20

The Tenets of Goodness & Law

As Lilith hastily strode through the streets of High Town from the keep, anger seethed within her. The storm above did not matter to her. The rain bothered her not, neither did the lightning flashing in the ebony and purple sky. The weather's tantrum only reflected the innermost workings of her mind and heart. She muttered to herself, "Ungrateful sodder! He dares to ask me to build him and army that he then _rejects_? No! This will not stand! I will ensure that-"

Lilith's grumblings were interrupted by an initially subtle sound that gradually increased in volume as she walked the streets. _What is that sound?_

The sound came from the church. It was the choir. They sang a familiar tune,

"_Praise to the Light of Heaven,_

_Holy, just, and true._

_Thy brilliance shines. Then flees the Darkness._

_So we honor You._

_Thy radiance and mercy_

_Will guide us on the way_

_Through this life's path_

_Until we see the dawning of the day."_

_I know that tune..._ Lilith marveled at its beauty and simplicity, then caught herself, _Wait! What am I doing? I remember this now... _Her heartbeat suddenly thundered in her ears and pulsed in her chest, deafening and immobilizing her for a moment. _Yes... I remember this now... Last time, I refused to enter and kept walking._ Lilith wasn't certain if it was the curiosity to see if she would be able to do things differently this time or if it was the music itself that compelled her, but something about this specific moment in time refused to release her. Finally, Lilith gave in and entered the church, with Walter close behind.

As she walked through the doors, memories flooded her mind, and she looked up at the stained glass windows with their depictions of events from the Holy Book. Their elaborate simplicity captured her attention as they never had before. It wasn't the colors. It wasn't even the pictures. It was the memories of the lessons learned from the narratives of the scenes above.

There was a picture of Erasmus the Just, who learned that justice and mercy were not opposites, but two sides of the same coin. There was a depiction of the first Lightbringer, Julius the Chaste, refusing the seduction of Dalia the sorceress, who sought to learn his weakness, which taught the virtue of steadfastness and purity.

As Lilith walked down the center aisle of the pews, she examined each window with renewed fascination. Never before had the images spoken to her as they had now.

Lilith's thoughts were interrupted by a thud that stopped her in her tracks. She looked down to see that she had bumped into a priest who had been knelt down praying at the altar.

"Oh, forgive me." Lilith excused herself. She turned to walk away hastily.

"No, please. Stay." the man offered. "I have been praying that the Light would send some wayward soul across my path today that I might help."

"You believe me to be wayward?" asked Lilith, intrigued but skeptical.

"I believe many people are wayward without even realizing it." The priest's eyes were kind and genuine as he spoke.

"Are you aware that a battle rages in the night outside, that the king's soldiers are dying and meeting their untimely, gruesome ends?"

"Of course."

"Then why are you not praying for that, or better still, why are you not on the field, readying yourself to participate in the battle and heal the wounded?"

"I'm not fighting."

"You _are_ a cleric, are you not?"

The man nodded, "Brother Theodore at your service, my lady."

"You may call me Lilith." said Lilith skeptically. "Tell me, why do you not fight?"

"Battles come and battles go, and the politics of the noble classes go on, no matter the outcome. I don't believe the world will become better through battle."

"Do you not? Tell me then, how _do_ you seek to better the world?"

"In the little things, in helping people to overcome personal struggles and offering them counsel and hope in the Light. I seek to rid the world of evil, not by warring with those who commit it but by investing in those who the Light brings in my path, inspiring them to uphold the tenets of goodness and law. Hopefully, that will prevent some from ever straying to the paths of evil and chaos."

"Ha! Has no one told you yet that goodness and law are antithetical?" said Lilith, "They can never exist in harmony. In fact, the very pursuit of unifying them only leads to chaos and drives one's heart to evil means to accomplish their goal. Take it from someone who knows..."

"With all respect, my lady," the priest said humbly, "I disagree. The reason so many believe as you do is because they do not know any better. They see the evil and the wicked accomplishing their goals, and they presume that it is their means that allows them to succeed, but the truth is, they don't actually succeed. The impure of heart may thrive in the short term, but in the grand scheme of things, it is those who hold true to the tenets of the Light that thrive."

"I have heard prosperity preached many a time, but it seldom rings true. Evil events fall upon the good, and the creed of the lawful only binds their hands and gags their mouths in their fight against chaos. Such are the tried and true dictates of logic."

"The problem isn't with your logic, my lady. The problem is that you try to _use_ logic to settle this matter in your heart and mind at all."

"What do you mean?"

"See, you presume that holding to goodness and law is the logical thing to do, but when it makes sense, seemingly good deeds performed are just logical, not truly good, and doing the right thing isn't truly lawful until it costs something."

Lilith listened on in silence.

"The truth is, doing good in the face of evil and holding fast to what one knows is right aren't acts of logic. They're acts of faith."

"You think yourself wise, but you are a fool!" Lilith scoffed, "We are all destined for our courses, which no one can change. The events of this world were preordained from the beginning. What role does faith have in fate?"

"None whatsoever." Brother Theodore stated flatly. "The problem is, people perceive that they _must_ follow a path, because it makes sense, but faith isn't ever about what makes sense. It's about taking a risk and doing something you know you should, without knowing what the outcome will be."

"Why do you so fervently place your hope in faith?"

"Because, it's our ability to act on faith that separates us as people from the animals. Animals are forced to act solely on instinct, but we are more than that. We were made in the image of the Light! That is why we must turn to it!"

Lilith paused thoughtfully for several moments. For a split second, her expression seemed to indicate that she truly understood what the priest said. Then, in a sudden flash, her expression hardened. "You know nothing! This was a waste of time!"

As Lilith turned away, a brilliant light shined forth from behind her. She turned to see that Brother Theodore's eyes, nose, and mouth burst with luminescent radiance as six wings with feathers of light sprouted from his back.

In a thundering voice, he echoed, "Listen well, Sister Michal. The Light has revealed to me that this is your moment of choosing. As the harbinger of the Light, I give you this message: you stand at a crossroads. One path will lead to misery and destruction, the other to fullness and gratification. Ultimately, it is the fate of this world that hinges on your decision. Choose carefully. Choose well."

In a flash, the light from the priest vanished, and he collapsed to the floor. Lilith stared in awe.

Now with full understanding of the situation and who stood before him, Brother Theodore looked earnestly into Michal's eyes. "Listen to me, please. The Light revealed to me that my purpose as this generation's Lightbringer is here at this moment. Though the choice lies with you, I would urge you to look within yourself and ask what it is that first motivated you in life and if your new motivation of achieving your supposed destiny is as fulfilling as what first fueled your passion. I promise you, the decision _is_ yours to make."

Michal stared long and hard beyond the priest, focusing on nothing, save her own inner battle. All of the pain, all of the struggle, all of the decisions came down to this.

As she determined her course of action in her heart, she looked into the eyes of Brother Theodore with sincerity, "I will _never_ become that woman."

Once more, Michal's heartbeat thundered in her chest, debilitating her. A flood of memories and unmemories and emotions and thoughts and pain and joy and sorrow and anger and love and turmoil and peace all blasted into her head at once. The experience felt like a knife driven between her eyes. Clapping her hands over her ears and holding her reeling head, she collapsed with dizziness and plummeted into sudden darkness.


	22. Chapter 21 - The Epic

Chapter 21

The Epic

Michal awoke with a start. Her body was drenched in cold sweat. The morning bells rang loud and clear from the bell tower in the church steeple and resounded through the stone halls of the elaborate building. The air was cold and smelled gently of the smoke from the hearth as it stilled ebbed a small, orange flame.

Michal's gaze darted around her. She was in her dormitory in the High Church, nestled cozily in her bed with fresh, white linens. Her water basin sat on her nightstand, next to her glass of drinking water. On a mannequin in the corner, her chain armor hung, with her hammer leaning against her vanity.

Hastily, Michal jumped out of bed and dressed herself in her simple, red velvet dress with elongated, open sleeves. She burst forth from her room, nearly tackling Mother Phyllis.

"Oh my!" exclaimed the hefty woman, "Michal! What are you doing? Where are you going in such a hurry?"

Michal stopped abruptly and turned back, jumping into the woman's arms and squeezing her as tight as she could.

"What's brought this on, child?"

Michal buried her face in the woman's chest for a moment, trying desperately not to cry. Then, with glassy eyes, she looked up and smiled, "I just love you, Mother!"

"I love you too, baby." the woman said, patting the girl's head sentimentally, though confused.

With that, Michal dashed over to the men's side of the church as fast as she could manage without being seen running through the building by the High Father or anyone else of great importance and began pounding furiously on Jared's door, drawing the attention of several of the Brothers whom she had shoved past to get there.

"What is it?" asked Jared as he opened the door, still dressed in his nightshirt. He looked down to see Michal, huffing and puffing as she looked up at him with tears in her eyes. "What's wrong Michal?"

Michal's eyes welled with more tears as she embraced the man's bearded face in her hands. "You're here..." she whimpered with a smile, "and you have _two _eyes!"

"Where else would I be?" he asked, confused.

Michal bit her lip, unsure if she should tell him about all that had happened.

Finally, she decided against it, opting instead to throw her arms around Jared's neck in a hug.

"Are you okay, Michal?" Jared asked, confused, "I'd ask if you've gotten into the sacramental wine again, but you smell clean enough."

"It's not that." Michal responded, "It's just..." She looked up into the eyes of the man she had seen as her only true father figure in her whole life. "I love you!" She grabbed the man's neck again.

Jared embraced her back, "I love you too."

As she let go, Michal asked, "What day is it?"

"It's the day after Wintersday."

"Wintersday?"

Jared nodded, "Don't you remember? During the sermon on Winter's Eve, the High Father announced you as the next Lightbringer, and then we all had a celebratory banquet after."

Michal thought for a moment and realized that she did indeed remember this. In fact, she had two complete sets of memories, one of all that had happened with her being sent back in time and becoming Lilith and raising an undead army, as well as a second set of memories in which none of that had ever happened. In this reality, Lilith had never existed, because she had never sent Michal back in time to become her in the first place. Michal's initiation service had gone smoothly, and though she and Jared were occasionally called out of the city to deal with the occasional goblin encroachments into the outer city, Dorenkeep had remained relatively safe, with the exceptions of petty crime and the like, and it had been so for decades.

"I want to go see the town!" Michal burst with sudden enthusiasm.

"Why?"

"I just do!"

Jared placed the back of his hand against Michal's forehead to feel if she had fever, "Are you _sure_ you're all right?"

Michal chuckled and dragged the half-naked man into the hallway, overtaken with her own excitement.

"Michal!" Jared gasped, grabbing a nearby tapestry off the wall to cover himself, "At least let me put on some clothes!"

As Michal and Jared walked the streets of the city, people were removing their Wintersday decorations from their storefronts and homes or else picking up stray and broken decorations from the blizzard the day earlier. The cold, crisp air blew crystal flakes of snow from piles into the drifts that spread across the road and forced the citizens to travel by foot this day, and children of all walks of life danced and tromped happily in the piles of white powder, forming snowmen, snow forts, and snowballs with which to assault one another.

"Isn't it all so beautiful?" Michal marveled, glancing around and taking it all in.

"Are you sure you don't want a cloak?" asked Jared, pulling his brown, fur-lined hood over his head with a shiver, "Where are we going anyway?"

"We're going to go get lunch at the single best place in the city to eat lunch!"

"Where is that?"

Michal smiled a wide, satisfied grin as she answered, "The Broken Mirror!"

As Michal and Jared walked through the city, Michal sorted through her new, second set of memories. She and Jared had never met the Raven or Sapphire or Brock. If they still existed, were they still alive? Would they even be here in the city? It had been months since their initial encounter would have taken place, and with neither of them being human, Michal wasn't even sure if they would have stayed in the city for any reason at all, if they had come in the first place. However, Michal refused to allow the doubt and uncertainty that loomed deter her mission to at least see if there were any hope of seeing her once-companions.

Finally, the two reached the Broken Mirror, the seedy tavern in the outer city where Michal had indicated that she wanted to eat, to the bewilderment of Jared as he looked the place up and down. The inside was worse; the tavern reeked of sweat and stale, cheap ale. The patrons were mostly gruff men, armed and armored, and the few women in the bar besides Michal could be described as loose and provocative at best. The walls shook with the noises of rowdy patrons singing crude drinking songs and the barmaids giggling at the things whispered in their ears from drunken men.

Jared glanced from side to side uncomfortably. _This is no place for a paladin..._ His nose wrinkled with disgust at the strangely familiar, mingled smells of alcohol and body odor that wafted offensively from the hairy men who brushed against the two as they attempted to squeeze past them to get up to the bar.

"What are we doing in a place like this?" asked Jared as she shoved his way past the last of the wall of patrons and came up to the bar awkwardly. He pulled the hood of his fur cloak over his head in an effort to hide his face from onlookers.

"Well, well!" laughed the pudgy, mustachioed barkeep as he wiped a stein with a filthy rag, "Not too often we get church folk in here! What's your name, pretty little girl?" He leaned in toward Michal.

Jared shoved the man away by his shoulder, "Get away from her!"

"No, Jared. He didn't mean anything by it." said Michal, grabbing onto Jared's arm, "He was only teasing."

"The girl's right." the barkeep insisted with a sincere nod. He cocked an eyebrow as his gaze fell behind Michal toward the door, "Well what do ya know, looks like today is the day of strange visitors in my humble tavern..."

Both Michal and Jared turned to see who had just walked through the door. Standing in the doorway was a regally dressed, dark-skinned man with a well-trimmed beard and short, black hair. His clothing was mostly hues of blues and purples, and his vest was trimmed with silver embroidery.

"Raven!" Michal exclaimed, recognizing the nobleman. _Wait a minute! He isn't the Raven._ Michal reminded herself as she recalled her new set of memories, _He's the youngest member in history of the Council of Elders of Doren. He was never framed for murder or wanted._ Michal wasn't certain if the fact that Alistair Cromwell had never been the Raven made her happy or sad. On the one hand, he had the life he was always meant to have, but on the other hand, he was no longer an icon of justice for the destitute... and yet, as Michal continued to recount her new memories, she remembered that he was the reason that the outer city was considered part of Dorenkeep. It was because of him that the Guard patrolled out here at all.

"Lord Cromwell?" said Jared, perplexed at the sight of the nobleman, "What are you doing here in Outer Town?"

Alistair's face washed over with confusion as he confessed, "Truthfully, I'm not really sure... I was going about my routine, and I felt this strange compulsion... like someone tugging on my mind. I followed where it led, and I ended up here. I'm-" He cut himself off and stared intently at Michal, "I'm sorry, but do I know you? You look awfully familiar..."

"This is Michal of the Sisterhood of the Light. Perhaps you've seen her while attending sermons at the High Church?"

"He doesn't believe in the Light." Michal informed at the exact same moment that Alistair used those same words to convey the same thought.

Alistair stared at the priestess even more intently now. "How could you know that? True, I don't go to sermons, but never in all my life have I confided that secret to anyone."

"Why would you hide something like that?" asked Michal.

"You _do_ realize, Sister, that for a noble of the city to publicize lack of faith in the Light is akin to political suicide?"

"Better to be honest than a hypocrite." said Michal, "I believe that everyone should come to faith in the Light, but that isn't something that can be forced, not with it still being genuine anyway."

Alistair gazed intently into the eyes of this perplexing priestess. Never before had he heard a member of the Church speak the way she did. Though it shook him at his core, it also left a residual twinge of conviction in his heart about whether he had been hasty in his assertions about the priests.

"Why don't you join us for lunch, Lord Cromwell?" Michal offered warmly.

"Please, call me Alistair." said the nobleman. He glanced around the tavern, trying to decide what he would do. Then, he turned to the girl and smiled, "Sure. Why not?"

As the group went to sit down at a table, Michal saw a dwarf dressed in fur sarcs, sitting at a corner booth next to a blue-clad halfling woman with a violin at her side and a pen and paper in her hand. Michal ran up to the dwarf and bent over, embracing him in a tight hug as she squealed with glee, "Brock!"

Even further confused, Jared and Alistair followed the spastic teenager across the crowded room.

"Do I know you?" asked Brock, raising his eyebrows at the girl who was squeezing him.

"No!" Michal smiled a gleefully broad smile as she stated with satisfaction, "No, we've never met once in either of our lives, but we're going to become close friends!"

"Are you drunk?" he asked, sniffing the girl.

"That's what I've been trying to figure out since she woke up this morning." said Jared as he and Alistair walked up behind them.

"No!" Michal said with exuberant joy, "I'm not drunk! I'm just happy to be alive!"

"Are you _sure_ she's not drunk?" Alistair whispered into Jared's ear as he leaned over.

"Sapphire!" Michal squealed delightedly as she let go of the dwarf and embraced the halfling woman, lifting her off the ground.

"How do you know my wife?" asked Brock, confusedly scratching his head.

"You two are _married_?" Michal gasped with joy and disbelief, "I had no idea! Congratulations!"

At this point, the four people standing around Michal were so inexpressibly confused that they simply decided to ignore the elephant in the room, or in this case, the giddy priestess in the seedy tavern.

Attempting to change the subject, Sapphire stared intently at Jared for a moment, "Have we met?"

"I don't believe so." Jared replied, "Why?"

"I can't place my finger on it," said Sapphire, bringing a finger up to her lip thoughtfully, "but I feel like I've seen you gardenin'... or possibly trimmin' hedges?"

Jared raised an eyebrow, "No... I'm Jared Lightbringer, captain of the Church paladins, the Shining Shield."

"I feel almost positive that I've seen you..." Sapphire paused, hesitant to say what sounded absurd to her even in her own mind, "maulin' bushes?"

"No..." Jared narrowed his eyes in bewilderment.

"How is your epic coming, Sapphire?" asked Michal.

"How did _you_ know I was writin' an epic?" Sapphire gaped.

Michal paused, realizing that she was apparently the only one who remembered anything. She sighed, "Never mind..."

Sapphire, seeing disappointment fade into the cleric's eyes, decided to open up. After all, she had nothing to lose at this point anyway, "Honestly, it isn't goin' so well. I've been followin' party after party of adventurers, tryin' to get together the perfect story for my saga, but so far, the only good to come out o' it was that I met Brock here when he guided one o' the parties I was with. I ended up with a great husband, but I've still got no story."

Michal frowned with discouragement. Then, in a sudden epiphany, she realized something that had been glaring her in the face the whole time. She smiled and piped up, "I've got a great story for you!"

"Really?" asked Sapphire, perking up and swiping her pen and paper up to write. "Let's hear it!"

Alistair, Brock, and Jared took seats at the nearby table and ordered drinks and food, while Sapphire sat at the hearth, recording as Michal began.

"The High Church of the Holy Light stood erect in the heart of Dorenkeep. With its white, marble pillars bordering its huge, oaken double doors and its lustrous stained glass windows that shone with reds, yellows, and greens into the night, it remained a centuries-old beacon of hope in a city that had long forgotten the true meaning behind the traditions and rituals of a religion whose true disciples counted few and whose hypocrites abounded. The church itself was a symbol of an ideal, an ideal that gave the people of Dorenkeep comfort and a sense of safety, regardless of whether they lived in the upper, middle, or lower cities. This night, though thunder and lightning troubled the rain-filled skies, the melodious songs of the giant pipe organ rang out through the empty streets of the upper city. All of the nobility had gathered in the hallowed halls for the committing ceremony of the newest member of the Sisterhood of the Light..."


	23. Epilogue - Defenders of Doren

Epilogue

Defenders of Doren

Dorenkeep lie still and quiet in the summer night. It was late, and the glow of the streetlamps was almost unneeded, because the brightness of the full moon illuminated the sky like a dimmer second sun. In the heart of the city, the lights of a lone building remained burning, and smoke still rose from the chimney. It was the guild hall of the newly established Defenders of Doren, a guild which had been founded by a cleric named Sister Michal over one year ago.

The guild consisted of five members in total so far: Sister Michal, the founder and master of the guild; Captain Jared Lightbringer, also of the Shining Shield and second in command of the guild; a mysterious rogue, the Raven; Brock the Wanderer, a dwarf barbarian; and the bard who made the group famous with her ballad "Goodness & Law," Sapphire the Minstrel of Farshire. Together, these five had protected the kingdom of Doren from goblin incursions, bandits, pirate raids, rising cults, and a slue of other threats that had arisen in the kingdom over the course of the year.

However, with the continually increasing number of threats to the kingdom, it had become apparent to the Defenders that they needed to increase their ranks to accommodate the demand for their services. So for the past few days, the guild had been recruiting, taking prospects on missions with them to determine how they would fare in more dire circumstances. It had been a long week, and now that the weekend had arrived, the party lounged about their base of operations.

Raven sat in the corner of the common room, smoking his pipe. He watched his companions as they went about their own ways of unwinding.

There was Brock, sharpening his axe with a whetstone. Never had Raven known a sturdier or more loyal companion than this nomadic dwarf.

Sitting at the table across from Brock, Jared read the Holy Book, muttering to himself as he followed the words intently. Though Raven and Jared had their differences, they were true friends, perhaps deeper than most, since their honesty and respect for one another resulted in both sincere and playful challenges to the other on many topics and occasions.

Toying with her violin while writing by the light of the fireplace was Sapphire, Brock's quirky wife. There were few who were able to draw as much as a smile from Raven, and Sapphire's composition based on Jared, "The Shrub Slayer," was the only song that had ever caused him to burst out in laughter.

Sitting on the window ledge, looking out into the starry night was Michal. Her eyes were distant, lost in her own thoughts, as Raven found she often became, especially at night. However, through her thoughtful demeanor, Michal had a wonderful sense of humor and a deep, abiding conviction that never wavered.

It was this firmness of honor and nobility that had first caught Lord Alistair Cromwell's attention in that tavern as she had told her story with such detail and passion that it had seemed almost real. It seemed like only yesterday to Raven that he had, inspired by Michal's story, determined to hone the fighting skills he had learned as a boy from his uncle and take on the persona of the Raven to focus his efforts on defending those who could not defend themselves.

As the fire crackled and popped in the otherwise quiet room, a rapping on the door interrupted the flow of relaxation. It came a second time. The companions exchanged confused glances from across the room.

"Who would be callin' at this hour o' the night?" Sapphire questioned, setting her violin down.

"I don't know..." said Michal, standing from the window ledge, "Don't bother yourself getting up. I'll get it."

The cleric walked over to the door and reached for the knob. The moment her fingers grazed the door, she felt her heartbeat booming in her chest, deafening her to the rest of the world. All sights and sounds faded out of existence, except for the front door of the guild hall.

Michal's memory suddenly flashed back to when this had happened before, whenever she had encountered her past self in the present in that first reality that she had known. Her body surged with tingling chills, and her eyes widened with dread at the thought of who might be waiting on the other side of the doorway.

Gripped by fear and anticipation, Michal longed to leave the door unanswered, but she could not pull her hand away from the knob no matter how desperately she longed to do it. At the same time, though, she remained unable to bring herself to open the door to see what lie on the other side of this single wooden barrier to the unknown.

Jared, noticing Michal seemingly frozen in place, piped up, "Michal, are you all right?"

The knocking came a third time, snapping Michal out of her trance. She turned and nodded, "Yeah. I'm fine. Thanks."

She shook her head to awaken herself again, focusing on the door before her. Her heart rate increased, and her palms became sweaty as she slowly turned the knob.

As she did, she realized that the streets of the city were now blanketed by a heavy mist that rose to the knees. There was no one standing immediately at the door.

_So then where had that knocking come from?_ Michal asked herself, turning to right and to the left, looking down the streets on either side.

Then, she saw her. Directly ahead, standing on the opposite side of the convergence of the three roads, was an elderly figure in the mists. She wore maroon robes, with the hood pulled up over the upper part of her face as a cowl. Her white, stringy hair hung loosely from within the hood, and her gray, wrinkled skin on her face drew into a snaggle-toothed smile as she slowly reached up and pulled her hood back away from her face.

"Lilith!" Michal gasped under her breath as her mouth dropped agape.

The ugly shadow of what once had been maintained her position and smile as the mists began to rise, spiraling around her. Slowly, her visage began to fade and change. Her sickly pale, gray skin became a warmer, soft shade of pink with fewer and less pronounced wrinkles. Her stringy, white hair became fuller as its color warped to a light shade of gray and pulled back into a tail tied behind her head, with her long bangs hanging loose. Her maroon robes faded to white as the emblem of the High Church appeared, embroidered in gold thread. The robes became a tabard and hooded mantle over shining chain armor, and the witch's gnarled, wooden staff became a two-handed hammer embossed with gold holy symbols.

As the phantasmal cleric's appearance completed her transformation, her eyes, nose, and mouth began to shine with brilliant, white light. Six wings of holy fire burst from her back, and silver and gold flames tornadoed around the angelic being in wisps.

The vision's face brightened as she smiled at Michal standing in the doorway. Her phantasmal, echoing voice said only two words, "Thank you."

Then, in a sudden burst of blinding light, the mists dissipated, and the figure vanished.

Michal stood in the doorway for a moment, shocked and awed by what had just transpired. No longer did her heart's beating paralyze her, and the fear that had once gripped her heart so terribly was now released, replaced by relief and peace.

"Who was at the door?" asked the Raven, looking over at Michal standing there silently.

Michal turned to him and smiled as she replied, "No one... not anymore."

Raven raised an eyebrow but decided not to push the issue any further. Michal had always been an odd girl, yet he frequently got the sneaking suspicion that she knew something that none of the rest of them did. Had it not been for her staunch conviction and earnest loyalty, it might have bothered him more, but as it was, there was no need for further investigation.

As Michal came back into the common room, she took a seat at the table with Jared and Brock. She took an apple from the bowl in the center of the table and began to hum a familiar tune. After one verse, she began to sing it quietly to herself,

"_In the dark_

_Of the night,_

_We will trek_

_The path of light,_

_Though storm clouds may shadow our way..."_

As Michal came to this part of the song, Sapphire joined in on her violin, and Brock joined in the singing, drumming his hands to the rhythm of the song on the table.

Soon, all five companions were singing the song together. The music resounded subtly outside the guild hall, echoing through the empty streets of the slumbering city and rising to the silver crescent moon that hung watchfully in the blue-black night sky, _"And never, no never, no never, no never, no never, no never, we'll stray..."_


End file.
